Small Favors 2: Returning the Favor
by Eve8
Summary: Set about 5 years after 'Small Favors.' Jack and Sam's daughter is of special interest to Thor's oldest enemy, and it will take SG1 and all its allies to try to get her back.
1. Just Another Day

Title: Small Favors 2: Returning the Favor

Authors: Eve8 and Kate McCaye

Rating: K/PG

Summary: Set about five years after 'Small Favors.' Jack and Sam's daughter is of special interest to Thor's oldest enemy. When she disappears it will take SG-1 and all its allies to try to get her back.

A/N: Well, it's been quite some time since I finished Small Favors, and as reviews continue to trickle in, I'm going to assume people are still somewhat interested in it. My sister and I have been e-mailing back and forth about a sequel for some time, and this is the beginning of what we've come up with. Between the two of us, we're hopeful we can get out one or two chapters per month, but to make up for the slowness we promise to make them fairly long chapters.

Ch 1 - Just Another Day

Jack O'Neill awoke early in the morning, as he usually did, well before the alarm clock that was really only set in case of an emergency. He had always been a morning person, which was good, because his wife certainly wasn't. He got out of bed, took care of some 'personal business' in the bathroom, and went downstairs, deftly stepping over the fire truck at the top of the stairs and remembering to avoid the creaky step halfway down.

He could hear the television in the living room blaring cartoons - Power Puff girls from the sound of it. He grimaced as he realized that his ability to distinguish between all of the shows on the Cartoon network just by a few snippets of sound was truly terrifying.

He glanced at his watch. It was just past six thirty, and judging by the bowl of milk with a few lonely Froot Loops floating in it on the coffee table, the slightly flattened pillows lying in the middle of the living room floor, and the mess of video tapes in front of the television, his daughter had already been up for some time, and already wreaked an appropriate amount of havoc. But she wasn't in the room.

He turned down the television, trying to hear sounds from the rest of the house, but there was nothing. Maybe she went back to bed, he thought hopefully. He laughed out loud. Yeah right. She was even more of a morning person than he was. He went into the kitchen, intending to grab a cup of coffee before turning the house upside down looking for her, but there was no need.

She was sitting on the counter, precisely as she'd been instructed NOT to do on several previous occasions. The drawer underneath her was sticking open, an obvious indication of how she'd climbed up that high. Her mother was fond of saying she had got her father's appetite and stubbornness, although he knew for a fact his wife was pretty stubborn herself, so he figured that one was a toss-up.

However, there was no doubt where she got her intense concentration from, and it certainly wasn't him. From the angle where he stood, he couldn't make out what she was doing. Her back was to him and she was leaning over something, sitting sideways and cross-legged on the counter, so that all he could see of her was the back of her flowered nightgown and her head of very messy, very long, wavy blonde hair.

Hoping for the thousandth time that she didn't get his early-greying gene, he smiled and decided to announce his presence. "So, my little Morning Monster, what are you up to?"

She jumped at the noise and turned around quickly, looking at him guiltily. "Whatcha doin?" he asked her, coming over to hug her and pull her off the counter.

"Er… morning, Daddy, I was just umm…" she started to explain. He froze as he saw what she was doing. She had completely dismembered the toaster. She shrugged and gave him an innocent look and he stared back at her, a mixture of shock, amusement, frustration, and concern.

"You could have been seriously hurt!" was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

"No I couldn't. I unplugged it, it's dead," she said reasonably.

"Obviously," he said, gesturing at the mess of parts. She was giving him a look that was so familiar (he just wasn't used to seeing it on her face quite yet) that he let out a frustrated cry. "You don't have any idea why this bothers me, do you?" he asked, looking at her closely.

"No."

"Oh for crying out loud, Jo. Wait here."

"Daddy?"

"What?"

"Are you going to wake up Mommy?"

"Yes, I am."

"She's not going to be happy!" his daughter called after him.

He groaned as he headed back up the stairs, not bothering to avoid the creaky step this time. "FIVE years old fercryinoutloud," he said to himself as he went back into the bedroom, where his wife was still completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

"Carter!" he said sharply, standing next to the bed. No time for nice, sweet, husband-like wake-ups this morning.

She jumped and looked up at him quickly, blinking and bewildered.

Smugly satisfied that his CO voice still worked occasionally, (okay, so only on her subconscious, but still…) he ignored her questioning look and said, "There's something I'd like to show you in the kitchen."

"It's so early," she moaned, shielding her eyes from the light filtering through the closed blinds.

"Maybe. But there's something you should see. Something that is entirely your fault, I'd like to add," he said, pulling the covers off of her.

"Why are you so grumpy?" she asked, rolling out of the bed and grabbing her pajama pants to pull on over her underwear. It was chilly in just the pants and her camisole, but she didn't plan on being out of that bed for very long anyway, no matter WHAT was in the kitchen.

"I'm trying to show you why I'm so grumpy. Come on." She followed him downstairs and into the kitchen and gestured at their daughter, who was still studying the inner workings of the toaster as if they contained the meaning of life.

"Oh," Sam said quietly, trying very hard not to smile at the serious look on his face.

"OH?" he repeated.

"Her first appliance!" Sam suddenly gushed, hugging his arm and pressing her cheek into his shoulder. "Oh, I'm so proud! Where's Daniel with his camera when you need it?"

He looked down at her in complete shock and then caught the teasing look in her eye and let out a strangled cry that got their daughter's attention again. "Hi, Mommy," she said. "I told Daddy he shouldn't wake you up so early but he pretended not to hear me."

"Hi, sweetie. Thanks for trying." She tucked her daughter's hair back away from her face, cupped her chin in her hands, and said, "We need to have a little talk. And neither of us is going to like it."

Jack smiled smugly at both of them and went over to get some coffee for himself and Sam, while Sam picked their little girl up off the counter. "Geez, you're getting so big," she said melodramatically, carrying her over to the kitchen table. "I guess I should have seen this coming, Jordan."

"Seen what coming?" she asked innocently.

"Well… can you explain for Daddy why you took apart the toaster?" she asked.

Jordan looked back and forth between them, biting her lip. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what were you thinking at the time? What were you feeling?"

"I just… wanted to see what was inside of it. What it was made up of. To see how it makes the bread turn into toast. I can put it back together."

"No way," Jack put in, sitting down at the table and setting a cup of coffee in front of his wife.

"Yes, I can I know where all the parts go," she insisted, getting the stubborn look on her face they both blamed each other for.

"Jordan, sweetie, I'm sure you could put it back together, but the thing that is worrying Daddy, and me, is that sometimes even when you put things like this back together the right way, if you plug them back in, they might hurt you. It would be like sticking your finger in the socket. We don't want you to get hurt."

"But…"

"Trust me, I've been shocked lots of times and it is not fun."

"But if you've been shocked lots of times it must not be so bad, I mean, you're okay now, Mommy…" she argued.

"Well, I've been lucky enough not to be shocked too severely. And the smaller you are the worse it would be. So. No more fiddling with the kitchen appliances, okay? At least until you're seven."

Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Sam."

"All right, eight."

"Ten."

Jordan looked back and forth between them both, still unable to understand why they were making such a big deal out of it. Shrugging, she said, "Okay. Can I have breakfast now?"

"Sure, but toast is definitely off the menu," Jack said, making both of them laugh.

While Jack was busy scrambling eggs, Sam was working her way through her second cup of coffee, trying to keep up with her five year-old daughter's constant chattering while her brain was still slowly waking up. Breakfast was eaten quickly, as it always was during the week. The dishes were left soaking in the sink and everyone hurried to get ready for school and work.

xxxxx

Jordan O'Neill fidgeted in her seat and looked up at the clock again. Only ten more minutes to go. Ten minutes until recess. She could hardly wait. It was _so _hard, sitting still at her desk. Especially when they did Math right before recess. The stuff Ms. May was teaching them was _so _easy. She would have laughed, but she would have just got into trouble for it. The teacher turned and started writing on the chalkboard. People started taking notes, so she picked up her pencil as well, but didn't write. She drew a picture of Thor instead.

At recess, she ran to the swingset as fast as her little legs would take her so she could get the best swing, the one that didn't squeak at all or pinch your fingers in the chain. Her friend Alex got the swing next to her.

Alex was bigger than her, but smaller than most of the other kids in the class – he turned seven last month and already lost two baby teeth, both on the bottom. Most of the other kids were seven too. Some were even eight!

Jordan was only five and a half, so even though her Aunt Janet (who would know because she was a doctor) told her she was tall for her age, she was still the smallest in her class. It only bothered her at recess, because the kids who played baseball every day wouldn't let her play. Her dad was way more fun to play baseball with anyway.

"Jordan, I bet I can jump farther than you today!" Alex challenged.

"Bet you can't!" she replied, pumping her legs extra hard to build up speed.

She jumped out of the swing and landed hard, looking over at Alex. He was a foot behind her. She grinned at him as she got to her feet, brushed the grass off her hands, and tightened her ponytail, which was coming loose.

"You'll never go farther than me, Alex. I'm too small and fast."

"No, I'll beat you tomorrow!" Alex said cheerfully, dusting off his knees.

Matthew came up to Jordan and Alex then, with his friends Parker and Ethan. These were some of the baseball boys. They were big and mean, and Jordan really didn't like them one bit. Neither did Alex.

"You dropped this, Jordan," Matthew told her, waving her picture of Thor around.

She crossed her arms. "So?"

"So, who is it? Your real dad or something? Do you miss him? Maybe he'll come pick you up in his space ship."

Jordan swallowed the first response that came into her head – the one that was part of The Big Secret and she could never, ever tell. "My dad doesn't need a spaceship!" she replied instead. "He flies airplanes! Big fast ones."

"So?" Matthew challenged. "My dad is HUGE! He could beat up your dad."

"You wish!"

"I KNOW!"

"Not-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"Not-uh!" Jordan's temper flared. "My MOMMY could beat the crap out of your dad, and my DADDY could snap him in half like a twig!" she yelled.

Matthew took this to be the ultimate insult. It didn't help that they'd gathered the attention of half the second grade class, as well as many of the first and third graders. "If they're so big and tough how come they've got such a scrawny little _girl _for a kid?" Matthew finally countered, pushing her.

Jordan stumbled backwards a bit, but quickly tightened her little hands into fists, and punched him squarely on the nose.

xxxxx

Jack O'Neill knocked on the open door of his wife's lab and poked his head inside. She was in the middle of some project that had her (and her three little helper-scientists) completely absorbed. "Sam?" he called to get her attention.

She turned to him in surprise - he always called her Carter at work. "Is it lunch time already?"

"Almost, actually, but that's not why I'm here – the school just called. I'm gonna go pick up Jordan."

"Uh-oh – is she sick?"

"No. It's the other thing."

"Oh." Sam watched him go and sighed. She had been no stranger to the principal's office in her own day, but her daughter was quickly making a career out of it.

xxxxx

Jack signed in at the school and showed them his ID – the security was his favorite thing about this school. He then made his way to the principal's office.

A kid was waiting with the principal's secretary, his formerly white shirt and navy sweater vest dotted with blood, his nose bright red. Jack's suspicions that his scrappy little daughter might have had something to do with that were confirmed as he saw the kid slowly eyeing his USAF uniform.

"General O'Neill?" the secretary (a woman whose name Jack should really know by now) asked.

"Yeah, hi."

"Hello. You can go on in, Jordan is already inside. She is so cute."

"Thank you."

He knocked once, opening the door as he did. The principal, a very stern old woman named Mrs. (although Jack had a hard time picturing a Mr.) McKeel, greeted him with a curt nod. He smiled and gave a little wave, looking around for his daughter.

He finally spotted a familiar pair of swinging legs dangling from one of the two chairs that faced the principal's overly large (probably to be intimidating to poor little kids) desk. Jordan was so small he couldn't even see the top of her head, just two skinny little dangling legs with grey knee socks that badly needed to be pulled up and slightly dusty black Mary Janes. Playground dust, probably, which meant playground fighting – again.

He lowered himself into the chair next to his daughter's and smiled at the surprised look on her face when she saw him. "Hey, Jo. You okay?"

She swallowed hard, nodded, and said, "Hi, Daddy."

"General O'Neill, thank you for joining us," Mrs. McKeel said tersely. "Jordan, please tell your father what happened."

"Matthew pushed me!"

Any sympathy Jack may have been cultivating for the bloody-nosed brat in the outer office vanished instantly. "That kid out there pushed you? He's got at least twenty pounds on you!"

"General O'Neill, as you can see, your daughter is unharmed. I assure you she did much more damage to poor Mr. Reed than he did to her, but he will be punished accordingly as well."

Jack opened his mouth to retort and his wife's half-teasing, half-serious warning of 'Play nice' filled his head. He cleared his throat and said, "All right, what now?"

"Jordan is suspended until Monday, effective immediately."

"What? Who the hell suspends a five year old?"

"Our agreement stipulates that Jordan is to be treated based on her grade, not her age. I believe you and your wife were just as insistent on that point as I was when she enrolled here, were you not?"

"Yeah, sure, but still..."

"I do not suspend many second graders, General O'Neill, but I warned you both this would happen after the _last _incident, did I not?"

"Yes," they both said quietly.

"Very well. Jordan, you may go collect your things and meet your father back here."

She slid out of her chair and gave Jack a very pitiful look that, as usual, completely melted his heart. He winked at her to show he wasn't really mad, and watched her let herself out of the office, putting all her slight weight into tugging the big heavy door open.

"General O'Neill, please make an appointment with my secretary for a time both you and your wife can meet with me to discuss this further."

"But..."

"Thank you, General. Have a nice day."

Jack nodded and went back out to the secretary. She eyed him and guessed, "Appointment, sir?"

"Yes, please," he said flatly.

She started flipping through a calendar on her desk and told the punk kid who had shoved Jack's daughter that he could go in. The kid practically ran into the principal's office, looking positively terrified of Jack. The secretary - Jack glanced at her nameplate - Ms. Nelson, then - suggested three available meeting times. Jack picked one randomly - their schedules were such that they'd probably have to reschedule several times anyway.

Jordan came back in with her backpack on. The huge thing dwarfed her. "All right, my little Rocky, have you got everything?"

Jordan nodded and tucked the wavy blonde curls that always escaped from her long, low ponytail back behind her ears. Jack crouched down in front of her and pulled up her socks, dabbing the tip of her nose as he got back to his feet. "Come on, let's get out of here."

She wrapped her tiny hand around two of his fingers and squeezed hard. Jack took the appointment card Mrs. Nelson was so keen on giving him, slipped it into a pocket, said goodbye to her, and led his daughter out to his truck. He waited while she buckled herself into her booster seat in the back before pulling out of the parking space.

"Daddy, are we going to work?" she called at the first red light.

He smiled at the way she was clearly trying to hide the hopeful quality of her voice. "Yeah, Jo. Did you miss lunch?"

"Yes. Daddy?"

"Yeah, Jo?" he repeated.

"What's suspended?"

He smiled. "It means you're not allowed to go back to school until Monday."

She thought about that for a while and finally asked, "Daddy?"

"Yeah, Jo?" After five years (well, okay, only about three where she could actually speak) he was used to one question after another.

"How is that a punishment?"

He laughed and admitted, "I don't know, kiddo. Kids have been trying to figure that one out for generations. Now, tell me what happened already, will ya?"

As he parked at the SGC, got out, and starting helping his (still talking) daughter out of her car seat, he chuckled. "What?" Jordan demanded.

"You tell a story like your Uncle Daniel. Come on, wrap it up before we get inside." He carried her, and she let him, which she usually didn't allow anymore unless she was sleepy.

As they got on the elevator, she finished her story. He had to smile when she repeated what she had said to Matthew. "You know Mommy doesn't like it when you say 'crap,'" he reminded gently.

"Yeah," she agreed. "But you said 'hell' to Mrs. McKeel."

Since Jack had been waiting for her to point that out since it had happened, he wasn't surprised. They went straight to his office, but it still took a while, as nearly everyone they passed wanted to say hi to Jordan, who was no longer as frequent a visitor to the SGC as she had been when she was a baby.

Finally in his office, Jack set her down and went to his desk. Immediately, Jordan began digging through her backpack for something or other. He sat down and watched her. He had no idea what to do. He knew full-well bringing her to work and having the entire base fawning all over her was most definitely _not _a punishment, but he couldn't quite bring himself to punish her for something he probably would have done too.

She pulled one of his old, worn baseball caps out of her bag triumphantly, put it on backwards over her messy low ponytail, climbed up in the chair opposite his desk, and looked at him calmly as if to say, 'Your move, Dad. Just _try _to punish me now.'

Jack shook his head in defeat and picked up the phone, punched in an extension, and waited.

"Carter."

"We're back. Lunch?"

"Absolutely, but I need about fifteen minutes."

"We'll save you a seat." He hung up, dialed Daniel, and said, "Uncle Danny, we have a surprise visitor who requests your presence in the commissary in ten minutes."

"Jordan's here?" Daniel asked in surprise. "Why?"

"Long story. Tell T and the Doc, would you?"

"Sure. See you in ten." Jack hung up the phone and looked at his daughter, swinging her legs and trying to contain her excitement – with about as much success as her mother had when she had a new doohickey to play with.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked in an exaggerated voice with a big sigh.

She shrugged and replied, "I dunno."

xxxxx


	2. Work and Play

A/N: Happy Holidays, everyone. I was so pleased with everyone's responses that we both wanted to get something else out as quickly as possible, and since this is the first time my sister and I have not been together for the holidays we've been talking and e-mailing more than usual, so the result for you guys is another chapter faster than I would have guessed possible. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I was sceptical about doing a sequel to this story, since the first one turned out to be much more popular than I ever could have hoped for, so it's nice to see that people are enjoying this one as well. Also, a quick note on this chapter - originally I thought of doing the entire story from Jordan's POV, but as she's so young that clearly would have presented problems eventually, so her perspective will just be visited from time to time along with everyone else's, similar to how the first story was written. This chapter happens to have lots of Jordan.

Ch 2 - Work and Play

Jordan held her dad's hand tightly in both of hers as they left his office and went to the commissary. On every third step, she jumped and he swung her forward. By the time they got to the commissary, he was pretending she was too heavy, but he was still swinging her just as high, so she knew he was just joking around. Besides, he was the second-strongest person she knew, aside from her Uncle Teal'c.

Giggling, Jordan looked around the commissary for her mom and the rest of her family but they weren't there yet. "Looks like we're the first ones here," her dad commented, nudging her to the back of the line.

"Hey, it's Jordan!" Sergeant Jones, the sergeant serving the meals, said, leaning over to high-five her.

Jordan jumped up, slapped his hand and grinned at him. "Hi Sergeant Jones. Do you have any grilled cheese today?"

"For you, always. I'll bring it to you in a few minutes, okay?"

"Thank you!"

"How come they give you such special treatment here, huh?" her dad asked as they moved down the line. "They don't make special meals for me, and I'm the General!"

Jordan laughed and turned to the sound of the opening door expectantly. She grinned as she spotted Daniel, Teal'c, and Janet. "Daddy, can I..." she started.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get us a table," he said.

She quickly maneuvered her way through the commissary to them, jumping at Teal'c first. He caught her and tossed her up in the air once, holding her up high near his shoulder with one arm so she could see everybody. "Greetings, Jordan O'Neill."

"Hi Uncle Teal'c. I got suspended for punching Matthew Reed in the face," she told him.

"Indeed?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Indeed!" she replied, nodding enthusiastically.

"Why would you punch someone in the face?" Daniel asked, taking her as she leaned out of Teal'c's arms and into his. She was really getting much too big to be passed around, but Daniel and Teal'c chose not to hear whenever anybody mentioned that.

She hugged him around the neck tightly and said, "Uncle Danny, that is a lengthy tale, as we say, right Uncle Teal'c?"

Teal'c nodded and smiled halfway as Jordan turned her attention to Janet and added, "Hi, Auntie," as she leaned out of Daniel's arms to kiss Janet on the cheek.

"Hi, sweetie. I talked to Cassie last night and she said to tell you 'hi' and that she misses you."

"She did? Cool!"

Daniel set her down and they moved over to the food line. Her grilled cheese was ready, so Janet brought it over to the table for her as they all sat down. "Where's Mommy going to sit?" Jordan asked, looking around the table with a frown.

"You can sit in her lap," her dad explained as he opened up her milk carton for her and put the straw in. That was good, because these tables were high and Jordan had to sit on her knees to eat otherwise.

"This is a really good punishment," she commented happily, dipping her fries in ketchup and smiling as all the grown-ups laughed at her.

"Anybody have suggestions?" her dad asked.

"Suggestions 'bout what, Daddy?"

"Nothing. Hey, look who's here!"

Jordan turned to the door hopefully and grinned. "MOMMY!"

xxxxx

Sam quickly located the source of the familiar sound. As Jordan made her way over to her as fast as she could, Sam had to smile. The little girl always looked like the perfect little student in her uniform – almost. Sam was used to seeing Jordan leave for school with everything tucked neatly into place, but by the time she picked her up from school or came home, she was either already in playclothes or the uniform was sufficiently rumpled and wrinkly. Seeing her in the early afternoon, still looking like the sweet little school girl any teacher would love to have in their class was an anomaly for Sam… particularly in light of the reason Jordan was visiting in the first place. The plaid jumper, short-sleeved white button-down shirt, tie, and knee socks were all (surprisingly) still on and relatively neat. Her daughter's angelic face only made her look even sweeter, as though nobody could ever ask for a more perfect little girl.

The messy ponytail and backwards baseball cap (one of Jack's old off-world caps) hinted at the truth, however. And the fact that, halfway to her mother, Jordan loudly and proudly declared, "Mommy, I'm suspended!" the illusion created by the uniform was effectively shattered. But somehow, to Sam, it made her all the more adorable.

Sam looked to Jack as she caught Jordan up in a hug and mouthed, 'suspended?' He nodded grimly. Everyone in the commissary was laughing at Jordan's loud declaration. The SG-3 Marines were taking it the extreme, cheering loudly for her - one of them was humming the Rocky theme. Sam glared at them - they were _so _not helpful at the moment - as she hugged Jordan tightly, tilting Jordan's head back away from her shoulder so she could kiss her head somewhere other than the old baseball cap. While the cap had been worn by the two people she loved most, it still, quite frankly, stank. She caught Jordan's cheek instead and quickly checked that her daughter's skirt was still sort of in place, as Jordan had both legs and arms wrapped tightly around her.

"Let me guess, whatever happened wasn't your fault?" Sam asked.

"Nope. Not my fault at all, Mommy!"

When Sam tried to put her down, Jordan tightened her grip on her, so she carried her with her to the line and grabbed a tray with one hand, switching Jordan over to one hip. "How long are you suspended?"

"Monday."

"Oh, that's not so bad then, just tomorrow. Wait, don't you have a spelling test tomorrow?"

"I dunno," Jordan answered absently, playing with Sam's dog-tags.

Sam sighed and set Jordan down so she could carry her tray to the table, squeezing Jack's shoulder lightly as she sat down. It was pretty much the most physical contact they allowed on base. Usually it wasn't even an issue, but when Jordan was there it was a bit unusual, trying to be mostly 'Carter and O'Neill' to each other and 'Mommy and Daddy' to Jordan.

"Are we _all _in trouble?" Sam asked, pulling Jordan into her lap and scooting their chair up to the table with Jack's help.

"Yup. Meeting with the Wicked Witch next Tuesday."

Jordan giggled at Jack's name for the principal. Sam frowned slightly but didn't have the heart to correct either of them. The woman _did _give off that Margaret Hamilton vibe. She wasn't green or anything… but Sam wouldn't have been terribly surprised to learn that she had a fleet of flying mutant monkeys…

"Okay, everyone's here now, tell us what happened," Daniel insisted, interrupting Sam's thoughts.

Jordan took a long drink of her milk to fortify herself (and for dramatic effect, of course) and began her story.

xxxxx

"You know," Jack commented casually after his daughter had finished retelling the story to her very captive audience. "You really couldn't have picked a worse day to get suspended if you were trying, Jo."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"It's not your fault. It's the Witch. I just don't know what we're going to _do _with you tomorrow. Or the rest of today for that matter."

"I can take her home today," Daniel offered. "I'll need to stop by my lab for a little while, gather a few things together, but I can work from your house just as easily as the lab."

"Daniel, thank you, that would be wonderful," Sam said gratefully, squeezing his arm.

"Why can't I stay here?" Jordan objected.

"There are a lot of people coming tomorrow. And… non-people. Big meeting with a bunch of allies, kid. Which means not a normal day at the SGC. Which means we have a lot to get ready today and tomorrow… we're going to have to trade you off I guess?" Jack looked around at the rest of the table as he spoke. They all nodded.

"We should be able to work something out if we have to," Sam assured him, although Jack knew for a fact she had been swamped in the lab for weeks. She was running on fumes now, damn near exhausted. "Or we could try Mrs. Williams," she suggested hesitantly.

"Mommy, no!" Jordan begged, twisting in her lap and throwing her arms around her mom, clinging to her tightly. "I don't like that lady she's so boring!"

"And Jordan nearly gave her a heart-attack last time she babysat," Jack reminded.

The elderly woman had dozed off in front of the television and Jordan, bored, had decided to play with Jack's telescope. Which was on the roof. Needless to say, the woman had spent hours searching the house for Jordan, who was four at the time, and had completely freaked out when she finally located her on the roof. More scared of Mrs. Williams than anything else, Jordan had refused to come down until her parents got home. Mrs. Williams had turned down their next few job offers and finally stopped answering when they called altogether.

Sam had to acknowledge that nobody wanted Mrs. Williams around their daughter… least of all Mrs. Williams. "Yeah, you're both right. I wish Cassie was still around."

"Me too," Jordan and Janet said at the same time.

"Well, we'll work all that out later," Sam finally said. "In the meantime…"

"I'll go get my stuff together. Come on, Jordan, you can give me a hand," Daniel offered, getting to his feet and holding his hand out for her. She hugged and kissed her mom and dad goodbye, waved to Janet and Teal'c, and left with Daniel, holding his hand tightly and skipping.

xxxxx

Jack and Sam entered their house cautiously, not quite sure what to expect. Daniel had volunteered to take Jordan home after lunch, as his work for the day was basically working on translating a series of markings from digital images. He could easily work from his laptop at their house, whereas Jack and Sam both had several things to do at the SGC.

When Daniel babysat, strange things happened. Then again, strange things often happened when their daughter had any of her adult 'family' members all alone. She knew how to push everyone's individual buttons just the right way. Daniel was especially malleable though. Jordan had that figured out by the time she turned two.

So it was that Jack and Sam entered their house with a respectable amount of trepidation, the last time Daniel had babysat fresh in their minds. Jordan had immediately forgiven them for accidentally setting off the domino trail she and Daniel had carefully wound all around the downstairs, because the net effect was so cool in and of itself. Daniel had taken longer, silently grumping at them for days for 'wrecking it.'

"So far so good," Sam said quietly as they entered the kitchen. "She can't be in bed already."

"It's fifteen minutes past bedtime," Jack pointed out as he glanced at the clock.

"Exactly. She can't be in bed already."

"Good point," Jack agreed. Since Daniel was so willing to babysit, they had worked later than normal at the SGC, trying to clear up what they could of tomorrow's schedules. It was going to be tricky – they were going to have to bring Jordan with them and pass her around all day as various people became available to watch her for a little while at a time.

Shortly after Sam had come back to work after having Jordan, they had both been promoted. The net result was that Jack and Hammond basically shared custody of the SGC, so that they were both sort of semi-retired… or at least worked slightly more normal hours. The system worked well, and the two men were such good friends that both were willing to have flexible schedules when they needed to trade off hours, but the base was going to be crawling with alien ambassadors tomorrow, and they were both needed there. There was no way to get around it this time.

Tonight, most of the lights downstairs were out and nobody had greeted them yet. They looked at each other and shrugged. "Maybe they're playing hide and seek or something," Sam suggested as they headed up the stairs.

The door to Jordan's bedroom was partially open, and soft light filtered into the darkened hallway. So did two very animated voices. Jack started to call out to them but Sam pressed her hand to his mouth gently and pulled him back into the wall, sneaking closer to the door. He followed her, amused, and listened to Daniel and Jordan. It quickly became apparent they weren't really _talking. _They were reading. Figured.

xxxxx

For as long as Jordan could remember, she loved it when her Uncle Daniel read to her. Her mom and dad read to her too, but they were different. Her mom always read quietly in a voice that made Jordan instantly sleepy, so she never got to the good part of any story with her mom. She was also beginning to suspect that her mom used that voice on purpose, to _make _her go to sleep fast.

And her dad would read if she asked, but he didn't like her favorite books. He thought they were silly, and anyway it was a lot more fun to get her dad to let her watch 'The Simpsons' with him instead. Her best friend Alex wasn't allowed to watch 'The Simpsons,' but she could. Alex hated that.

But Uncle Daniel was the best reader on the planet, as far as Jordan was concerned. He could read in any language he wanted to, and when he read to her, he used different voices for all the characters, and sometimes he got so excited about the book that he stood up on his feet, held the book in one hand, and acted out what he was doing while he read.

He let Jordan help him too, with the acting out part, and with the reading too. And when she laughed at a funny part, he waited for her to stop before he kept reading, so she wouldn't miss anything. At the scary parts, sometimes he stopped to ask if she was okay but mostly he kept going, knowing she liked to be scared, and then at the end would make sure she wasn't too upset.

Plus he would read _forever. _Tonight they were doing _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, _and they were already on their second chapter of the night! Jordan was being Hermione, so every time Hermione said something, Daniel stopped and Jordan said that part, then Daniel kept on reading. It was lots of fun.

"'And that complete _cow _Pansy Parkinson!'" Jordan read, loudly and dramatically.

"... 'said Hermione viciously,'" Daniel supplied dutifully. Jordan was laughing, so he waited. "The cow?" he asked when she was done. He heard shuffling outside the door and figured Jack and Sam were home, but Jordan hadn't heard them yet.

"Yeah, that's a good one. Okay, my turn again. "'How she got to be a prefect when she's thicker than a con... concussed?'"

"Perfect, good job."

"'Than a concussed troll...' Uncle Danny what's concussed?"

"It's an adjective that describes someone who's got a concussion. And a concussion is... well, maybe you should ask your Dad, he knows a lot more about concussions than I do, from first hand experience!" Daniel was now speaking to her bedroom door, so Jordan guessed that her parents were listening in from the hallway.

"Mommy? Daddy?"

xxxxx

"Aw, crap," Jack whispered loudly. "Just when I was about to convince you we could sneak out of the house and go to a movie."

"Riiight," Sam said with a smile, pushing the door open. She smiled at her daughter, who always looked sweetest like this, all clean and in her pajamas, sleepy but reluctant to go to sleep, looking perfectly precious in the middle of her big fluffy pillows and squashy comforter. Currently, she was tucked carefully into bed with her hideously unattractive but dearly loved Homer Simpson doll on her right side and a six-foot long archaeologist on her left, who was looking rather out of place in the lavender and white, very girly bedroom.

"Quite the performance, Daniel Jackson!" Jack said, clapping dramatically in approval of Daniel's reading.

"Um, thanks." Daniel smiled sheepishly and adjusted his glasses.

"Daddy, what's a concussion?"

"A whole lot of no-fun," Jack answered.

"Daddy..."

"It's a head injury... sometimes if you get hit on the head, say with a staff weapon or... the ramp in the gate room... then you get a concussion. Maybe you should ask Auntie about the specifics of it, I'm not really sure."

"You've been... concussioned though? Before?"

"Concussed? Oh yeah, sure. So have Mommy and Uncle Danny."

"Wow," she said, looking at them all solemnly. Then she wrinkled her nose thoughtfully and asked, "What about Uncle Teal'c?"

All three adults looked at each other. "I don't know if technically he's ever…" Daniel started.

"He can't, can he? I mean even without Junior, he's on the juice…" Jack added.

Sam cleared her throat a second before Jordan sat straight up in bed excitedly and asked, "What's Junior? Uncle Teal'c's son's name is Ryac and that doesn't have anything to do with getting concussed. How come he's never gotten one if the rest of you have?"

"Well…" Sam and Daniel started.

"Long story," Jack said. "And… you don't have clearance."

She pouted for a moment and shrugged, knowing she wouldn't get anywhere (tonight at least) on this subject. At the moment, Harry Potter was much more interesting. "Okay." Her mom was hiding a yawn behind her hand and looking at her watch at the same time, so Jordan knew she was about to tell her it was past her bedtime. "We can finish this chapter, right?" Jordan asked quickly, looking back and forth between her parents hopefully.

"Daniel's been here for a long time, sweetie. He's probably ready to go home," Sam tried.

"I don't mind," Daniel assured her.

"I already took my bath _and _brushed my teeth, please? I'll go to sleep right after, I promise."

Sam sighed. Jack, next to her, bowed dramatically to Jordan and said, "We shall leave the princess and her loyal court jester to their merriment."

They stepped back out into the hallway and Jack pulled the door closed as Jordan erupted into giggles and Daniel objected loudly, "Court Jester!"

xxxxx

"How are we supposed to do this?" Sam asked in the kitchen as she got herself a glass of water. They had decided to use the time they had alone while Daniel finished reading to Jordan to discuss strategies for trying to talk with her about her suspension and the reasons behind it.

"I have no idea," Jack said, sinking into a chair at the table slowly. "Whatever we tell her tonight, tomorrow's going to be like a vacation to her. Suspending kids from school as a punishment is stupid."

"When I got suspended, my mom dragged me around on her errands with her, and when we were home I had to stay in my room," Sam recalled, setting her glass down on the table in front of Jack and leaning into him slightly from where she stood next to his chair.

"Did that work? When you were suspended?"

"Well... I didn't have a lot of fun on those days, but I don't really recall it changing my behavior at school."

"Exactly. And even if we _could _confine Jordan to her room she'd just be happy to play in there all day. She's got all kinds of cool stuff in there."

"Yeah. Maybe we could put her in the brig," Sam suggested lightly, hugging him around the shoulders with a sigh.

"Works for me," Jack said lightly, wrapping an arm around her hips and nudging her towards his lap. "But she's really small, she might be able to slip through the bars. Although... that does give me an idea."

"What?"

"Well... since we can't call up your dad and ask him to drop by and tell us how he dealt with you, maybe we could ask Hammond to talk to her."

"Jack, we can't..."

"Why not? She knows he's 'in charge' of both of us..."

"And he does have experience reigning _you _in."

"You too."

"Not the same."

"Similar."

"Hmm. I don't know... I think we should try it ourselves first."

"So far that hasn't exactly worked."

"Yeah, I've noticed that."

xxxxx

Daniel headed into the kitchen for a cup of coffee to go, figuring Sam and Jack were in there because it was the only light on downstairs. He rolled his eyes as he entered the room and neither of them noticed. To be fair, he would have been surprised if they did, since they were both stuck to each other's faces. "Geez guys give it a rest, will ya?" he said loudly. "People _eat _at that table, you know."

About five years ago, his interruption would have made them jump apart, looking sheepish, and made Sam turn an interesting shade of red. Now they finished - or at least paused - their little makeout session and when Sam turned (still comfortably in Jack's lap) to look at him, she didn't look embarrassed at all, despite the fact that her hair looked like she'd been riding her old motorcycle without a helmet.

"How did everything go?" she asked.

"No problems," Daniel said, going over to the coffee pot, mainly to distract himself from the fact that one of Jack's hands was still running all over Sam's back. Underneath her shirt.

While he had been completely thrilled to learn about the strange circumstances that had finally got Jack and Sam together, and couldn't be happier with what the last five years had done to both of them, he still very much thought of Sam as a sister. And nobody wanted to see his best friend making out with his sister. Especially at the kitchen table where Daniel, not two hours ago, had been eating dinner with their daughter.

"Jordan's really excited about tomorrow," Daniel finally offered.

They both nodded, but it was only Jack who responded, "Yeah. Some punishment, huh."

xxxxx


	3. Take Your Daughter to Work Day

A/N: The next chapter is mostly in Kate's hands, and she writes much faster than I do, so hopefully it won't take as long as this one did.

Ch 3 - Take Your Daughter to Work Day

The next morning each member of the O'Neill household overslept. Technically it was Jack's fault. After an especially long night that had resulted in him actually sleeping until the clock went off in the morning for a change, he swatted the alarm clock a bit too hard, breaking the snooze button rather than just setting it to go off again in five minutes. Five turned into twenty, at which point Sam suddenly leapt out of bed as some wonderfully brilliant part of her brain reminded the rest of her that they actually did have things to do that day besides lie in bed. She ran out of the bedroom to wake up Jordan.

The rest of the morning was incredibly hurried, as Jack and Sam quickly took their showers, and everyone dressed and gathered the various things they needed for the day. Jordan dressed herself in her green cargo pants and black tee-shirt so she would fit in at the SGC and packed her backpack full of things to play with all day. She tried to pour her own juice and spilled it all over the kitchen. While Jack mopped it up with his sock, Sam hurriedly pulled Jordan's hair up into a ponytail while Jordan ate her breakfast.

Finally, they were all dressed and had what they needed. They hurried out to the truck and Sam opened the passenger door, lifting Jordan up by the underarms to help her into the four wheel drive truck. The sudden motion and added weight of Jordan and her backpack made her dizzy.

Jordan squeezed into the back, a tight fit with her backpack, and turned back around. "Mommy?"

"I'm fine," Sam said quickly, climbing into the truck and shutting the door.

Jack reached over the back to help buckle Jordan in, looking at Sam carefully. "Feel okay, hon? You're really pale."

"I'm fine," Sam repeated, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "We've just been running around all morning is all. I just need another cup of coffee."

"Okay," he said uncertainly, starting the truck.

Jordan rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a cereal bar. "Here, Mommy, eat this."

"Aw, thank you sweetie. But then you won't have a snack for later."

"I'll get something in Uncle Danny's lab. Or from Uncle Teal'c, they always have snacks."

"She has a point," Jack said with a chuckle.

"Please Mommy you didn't eat breakfast."

"All right. Thanks, Jordan." She took the cereal bar and opened it somewhat reluctantly, noticing that this was the third or fourth time this week her daughter had been concerned about her health. While Jordan was a very sweet child, she was still five years old, and as such was properly concerned more with herself than anybody else most of the time. It was unusual for her to be so worried about her mom… especially for no particular reason. "Why are you so concerned with me eating breakfast all of a sudden anyway? You're the pickiest eater on the planet."

"No I'm not. I just don't like food with bones in it or anything squishy or…"

"Okay, one more time," Jack interrupted impatiently, and both of the other people in the truck knew what the sudden and insistent change of topic was about.

"Daaaaaaaaad," Jordan whined.

"One more time," Jack repeated firmly. "What's the rule at work?"

"No touching any guns," Jordan said in a bored voice.

"And?"

"And those alien ones... even though they look like squirt guns."

"Right."

Sam cleared her throat and added, "And the red phone in Daddy's office?"

"Aw, Mommy, come on!"

"Jordan."

"But the President _likes _talking to me, Mom!"

"The President is a busy man."

"Yeah, and besides, he knows it's a school day, Jo. Do you think the President would be very impressed to hear that you got suspended for fighting at school?" Jack added.

Jordan kicked her legs at the back of her mom's seat but admitted, "No, sir."

xxxxx

After making it through security on the base, Jack, Sam, and Jordan headed for his office, which was across the hall from Hammond's office. Since they had a big meeting scheduled for later that morning between several leaders from other planets, both Hammond and Jack were on duty at the same time to attend the meeting.

Just as Jack opened the door to his own office, Hammond came out of his, completely ignoring Jack and Sam as he turned all of his attention to Jordan.

"I thought I heard a little girl out here," he said, smiling down at her.

Jordan slid her pack off her shoulders, stood up straight, and saluted him. He saluted her back (being overly formal to keep up the little game), and then smiled. "At ease, Airman."

She giggled and said, "Hi GG!" as she jumped up to hug General Hammond.

Jack, as always, had to swallow a smile at that, as Hammond lifted her up into a big bear hug. Hammond had always treated Jordan like his own grandchildren, and as Jacob wasn't around too much, he took his role as honorary grandfather seriously. Sam always referred to him as "Grandpa George" to Jordan, and, when the little girl had been a baby, she had shortened it to "GG," of course not understanding that it sounded like a very feminine name for the three star General.

Hammond didn't mind, but it always struck Jack as funny every time he heard it. Even now that Jordan was perfectly capable of saying "Grandpa George" or some other version, she still always called him by the name she had given him as a baby. "Did you know I was coming here today, GG? All day long!"

"Yes, according to Sergeant Harriman you were suspended from school." He set her back down on the ground and looked down at her seriously. "I understand that you assaulted a civilian. Is that true?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Do you know what I'd do to your mom or dad if they did that?"

"What?" she asked, looking slightly scared.

"I'd have them court-martialled and thrown in the brig!"

Jordan thought about that for a few moments and then grinned at him slyly as though she had figured out something clever. "But what about the time Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Danny got superpowers and they snuck out to go eat dinner and..."

"Jack!" Sam exclaimed involuntarily, before she remembered they were on base and in uniform. Things were going to be weird today, trying to keep up the professionalism with their child there.

Jack shrugged and grinned apologetically, then glanced at Hammond, who looked a lot less amused than Sam did. "It's a good story," he said evasively.

Hammond shook his head and looked down at Jordan. "Well, your father's disciplinary record is really not something you should be trying to copy, young lady. It's nice to have you here today, but I don't want to hear about any more fighting at school. I know your Grandpa Jacob would be very disappointed to hear about this too."

"Yes, sir," Jordan said, sounding very sorry.

Jack and Sam looked at each other quickly. Jack mouthed, 'see?' and Sam smiled and nodded slightly.

"Well, I have to get back to work before this meeting," Hammond said, smiling at Jack and Sam and patting Jordan on the head. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Okay, good luck with your meeting GG," she said, flashing a quick smile at him.

"I've got to get down to the lab too," Sam said, kneeling down beside Jordan. "You stay here for a while, and I'll come get you before Daddy's meeting, okay?"

"Here? In your office?" Jordan asked, wrinkling her nose and looking up at Jack.

"Yeah... what's wrong with my office?"

"But I... can't I go stay with Auntie for a little while?" Jordan asked. Hammond leaned in his doorway, wondered who would win this unfolding battle.

"Auntie?" Sam asked, surprised. Jordan hated the infirmary almost as much as her father did; although she loved Janet dearly, she preferred to see her outside of the infirmary whenever possible.

"Yes... please? I want to go see her."

"She's busy this morning, passing out shots and other horrible things," Jack said, picking up Jordan's bag and slinging it over one shoulder. "You're going to see her after lunch."

"But I really need to see her _now._"

"Why?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"Because... I just do. I won't get in the way. I'll even help hand out the lollipops after she gives the shots!"

"You're the only one who gets the lollipops, pal," Sam said, touching the tip of her nose. "She doesn't give them to the rest of us."

"Not even to me," Jack grumbled. "Come on. Say bye to Mommy."

"No! I really need to go see Aunt Janet NOW!" she threw her arms around Sam's neck to prevent her from getting to her feet.

"You're not sick, are you honey?" Sam asked suddenly, feeling Jordan's forehead.

"No, I'm fine I just want to go see Auntie!"

"Jordan," Sam said quietly. "You'll see her later today. She's busy right now. Now, are you going to go play in Daddy's office or do you need to sit in the Uncooperative Chair?"

At the mention of The Chair (the perfect punishment for their stubborn and squirmy daughter), Jordan stiffened and let go of Sam, wiping her eyes and looking down at the ground for several moments.

Sam watched her daughter thinking about it, weighing her choices. Jordan finally said hesitantly, "That's at home..."

"Nah, we've got one here," Jack said. "I can have Siler bring it up from storage to my office. Should I go call him?"

"No!" Jordan said quickly. "I don't need it!"

"Good," Sam said. "You going to tell me bye then?"

"Bye Mommy." Jordan, all friendly smiles once again, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.

Sam got to her feet and said, "Bye. I'll see you in a little while." Jordan took her bag from her dad and walked into his office calmly.

Jack shook his head. "What the hell was that about?"

"I have no idea..."

Hammond cleared his throat and said, "Colonel?"

"Yes, sir?" Sam asked, turning to him quickly. She had thought he'd already gone back inside his office.

"These 'Uncooperative Chairs?' Do you think they make them big enough for him?" Hammond gestured to Jack with his thumb.

"Hey!" Jack objected, as Sam laughed.

"I doubt it, sir."

"Hmm... still, it's a good idea... next time I'm waiting for a report..." Hammond disappeared back into his office half-talking to himself.

Jack rolled his eyes at the closed door. "Very funny GEE-GEE," he said in an exaggerated whisper.

Sam laughed and hugged him. "Good luck. I'll come get her in a little while."

"Don't forget," he warned, fully aware of her tendency to lose track of time.

"I'll set the alarm on my watch as soon as I'm in the elevator," she promised.

"Okay. See you later then." Since she had already risked an illegal hallway hug, he figured he was entitled to a quick illegal hallway kiss. Hey, today was far from normal already.

He grinned at the surprised look on her face and said, "Bye, Carter."

"Bye, General."

xxxxx

"How come everybody's so busy today, Daddy?" Jordan asked. She and Jack were in his office. He divided his time between answering his ringing-off-the-hook phone, answering the queries of the various officers who came hurrying into his office to ask him something, and admiring the pictures Jordan was drawing.

"Well, there's a bunch of ambassadors from some other planets coming to have a meeting, and a fancy lunch, and a tour of the base. So it's very important that everything goes smoothly, you know? We've got to be all formal and everything…"

"Is that why your blue suits were hanging in the back of the truck?"

"Yup. I've got to go change as soon as Mommy comes to get you. And… some of these people, they're really into rules and being formal, you know… so that's why we've got to keep handing you off today."

"Oh… you mean they won't like me?"

He smiled and said, "How could anyone not like you, you're adorable! But… they might not like that you're here today. On a military base."

"Oh." She nodded and tried not to look like her feelings were hurt at the idea that these important aliens wouldn't want to meet her. "But Daddy, can I come to lunch with you?"

Jack sighed. "Buddy, you know if it was up to me we'd be having lunch _alone, _and I wouldn't have to put on my dress blues and wear a tie and the shoes that pinch all day. I'll talk to Hammond about it, see what he thinks. But I promise you, lunch is going to be very boring today. Hey, what are you drawing now?"

"It's Quidditch. You know, in Harry Potter?"

"Oh, right."

"It's for Uncle Daniel. He does all the voices so good. He sounds just like the people on the movies when he reads."

"Yeah, he's a man of many talents."

xxxxx

When Sam popped back into Jack's office, Jordan was sitting behind his desk, playing on his computer. She smiled fondly at the sight of her tiny daughter sitting in the large chair behind the even larger desk, looking perfectly at home behind the Brigadier General nameplate.

"Hi, sweetie, ready to go?"

Tearing her eyes away from whatever game she was playing on the computer, Jordan smiled and said, "Almost, just a second."

"Where's your dad?"

She shrugged, already more interested in her game again. Jack answered the question himself by arriving. "Hey, I was just about to bring her to you."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, so far so good. Mostly. I was talking to Hammond…" He lowered his voice so Jordan wouldn't overhear. "She was asking about lunch but Hammond doesn't think it would go over well with some of our visitors. Siler's going to take her up to the surface for a picnic instead."

"Good idea," Sam agreed.

"All right, outta my chair, squirt," Jack said loudly, going over to his desk. He spun the chair around in circles a few times, which Jordan always liked.

Then he picked her up by the waist, turning her upside down. She laughed hysterically as he walked her over to Sam like that, then let her flip over onto her feet. "Be good, kid."

"Daddy, I'm _always _good," she said innocently, hugging him quickly before taking Sam's hand.

"Of course you are, _what _was I thinking?"

Jack watched them head down the hall to the elevator, Jordan swinging their joined hands. "Hey, Jo! Try not to blow up Mommy's lab, okay?" he called down the hall.

His loud yelling caused Hammond to poke his head out of his own office. He scanned Jack quickly and said sharply, "You're still not dressed."

"Going right now, sir," Jack promised.

As Jordan got on the elevator and the doors started to slide closed, she called sarcastically, "Be good, Daddy!"

Hammond chuckled. Jack said affectionately, "Ah, she's such a smartass."

xxxxx

"Did you have fun?" Sam asked Jordan as they headed down to her lab.

"Yeah, but Daddy was on the phone a lot. How many people are coming today?"

"About twenty."

"Wow. Is Thor coming?" she asked hopefully.

"No, sorry, sweetie. He's not." Sam really thought her daughter had something of a crush on Thor. He was right up there with Yoda and Harry Potter in her book. She saw him at least once a year - her annual 'checkups.' About two seconds after their daughter was born, Jack had become Thor's _second _favorite human.

As they got into the lab, Jordan looked around hopefully, clearly hoping her mom was in the middle of something cool. Her lab was much less cluttered than it usually was, however. "What were you doing this morning, Mommy?"

"Just finding stopping places in a few projects. I have to give a bunch of… well, they're kind of like lessons, I guess, to the people visiting later."

"Cool."

"Yeah. Unfortunately I'll be busy all afternoon. You're going to go with Uncle Teal'c next, then Sergeant Siler is going to take you on a picnic for lunch, so that will be fun, huh?"

"Yeah," she said, still looking disappointed at the news that she wouldn't be able to eat with them.

"Hey, it's not like we knew you'd be here you know?" Sam said lightly, climbing up on a chair and reaching up for a box on top of one of her shelves. "If I were you I'd be pretty happy about my 'punishment.'"

"I am," Jordan said. "Then after lunch am I going to Auntie?"

"Why are you so desperate to go hang out in the infirmary all of a sudden?"

She shrugged and looked away. "No reason," she insisted. "I just want to see her, and if the rest of you are busy…"

"Yes, you're going to be with her for most of the afternoon. Uncle Danny is going to be busier than any of us today, so you probably won't get to see him at all. But for now… I have something for you." She set the box on her lab table and climbed down from her chair, then set the box on the floor by her desk.

"Wow, cool! What is this?"

"These are spare bits from scrapped MALPs and other things. I thought you might like to tinker with them. Make a little mini-MALP or something."

"Thanks, Mommy!" Jordan cried, already rummaging through the box to take a little inventory. Sam smiled down at her, knowing that she would now be happily occupied while Sam finished up her own work.

Sam made sure all of her visual aids for her presentations were in order, and was working on a report from Area 51, frequently interrupting her own work to see what her daughter was creating. She had a couple of wrenches and had already built a little metal skeletal frame about the size of a shoebox and put it on wheels, but she was having trouble getting the little battery to work and make the whole thing move.

"Dammit, work!" Jordan exclaimed in frustration, hitting her little contraption with the wrench in her hand.

"Jordan!"

She cringed and looked up at Sam with a sheepish smile. "Oops. Sorry, Mom."

"It's okay," Sam said with a sigh. It was hard to get too upset when she was fairly certain she was the one responsible for that particular type of frustrated outburst in the first place. "What's the matter?" Sam asked, crowding down on the floor next to her, tucking her legs to the side and looking at the mini-MALP more closely.

"I can't get the battery to stay connected to this part here, that connects to the wheels…"

"I think it's a little too heavy for the frame. Try dropping the center of gravity to…"

"What does that mean?"

"Make the bottom way heavier than the top. Make your platform here stronger at the bottom… you might even want to put two more wheels, like the big MALPs. Then…"

"Okay, wait, let me do that part first."

"Want me to help?"

"No I want to do it by myself."

"Smart girl." Sam got to her feet, smoothing her skirt down, as she was already in her dress uniform, and ruffled Jordan's hair on her way back to her desk.

xxxxx


	4. In the Making

A/N: I did warn you that this one was going to have much slower updates than usual, but I didn't intend for them to be quite this slow. At least this one is long, as promised. Thank you all for your continued interest (and patience) with this story.

Ch 4 - In the Making

Jordan had just finished her little vehicle and was now confident that it would work once she could get some help with tying it into a controller, when her Uncle Teal'c showed up to pick her up. From her spot on the floor behind the work bench, she recognized his big feet and legs, but he couldn't see her.

"Colonel Carter, where is young…"

Jordan hopped to her feet, grinning at her largest 'uncle.' "I'm right here!"

"Greetings, Jordan O'Neill. Are you ready to accompany me?"

"Yeah sure you betcha!" She turned to her mom and asked, "Can you save my mini-MALP for me?"

"Of course. I'll put it back in the box until next time you're here. Have fun with Teal'c, sweetie. I'll see you at five, you and I are going home then."

Jordan scowled. "Without Daddy?"

"Yes, unfortunately Daddy will be here until pretty late tonight. We'll just have to have an extra-special girls-only night, okay?"

Jordan decided she quite liked that idea and nodded, hugging her mom tightly and kissing her goodbye. "Bye, Mommy. Have fun with the aliens."

"I'll try, sweetheart." She smiled at Teal'c gratefully. "Thanks, Teal'c."

"My pleasure, Colonel Carter," Teal'c said as he swung Jordan up into the air and settled her on one of his shoulders, one of her regular 'perches.' She was now tall enough that Teal'c had to duck while going through the doorway.

Jordan enjoyed her bird's eye view down the corridors, which were bustling with activity. She overheard enough snippets of conversation to know that the ambassadors had already arrived, and she heard somebody say something about her dad and Grampa George being in a big meeting. "Uncle Teal'c what do you have to do with the visitors?"

"I have a weapons demonstration in the afternoon, and I am required to attend the luncheon."

"Oh. Can we go to the gym?"

"As you wish."

"Can we spar?" she asked immediately. Teal'c had only very recently begun teaching her some basic martial arts, and she loved it. Her dad thought she was still a little bit too young, but her mom had pointed out that lots of karate schools took kids as young as five or six, and she would be in much safer hands with Teal'c than anybody else on the planet. "Oh! Can we do the training stick? Please? I remember all the moves you taught me last time - I practiced in the den with Mommy's old pool stick… only it was longer than the stick I used here and I accidentally broke the lamp at the end of the table, you know, that one with the fish? Nobody cared though - Mommy said she always hated that lamp anyway."

They reached the gym, and Teal'c set her down in front of him. He crouched down next to her, but he was still taller. "If you devote an equal amount of time and energy to meditation afterwards, we will retrieve the training staffs."

"Awww… come on, Uncle Teal'c, I don't want to kel-no-reem," she whined.

"Do you wish to be a balanced warrior?" Teal'c asked patiently.

"I… guess," she said reluctantly.

"Young Jordan, I appreciate and admire your enthusiasm. Your parents are the greatest of the Tau'ri warriors. I am certain that you will grow to be a great warrior. However, as you well know, the mind is even more important than the body. As your godfather I would be doing you a great disservice if I only instructed you in your physical growth."

"All right," Jordan acquiesced. "But we better do something really cool with the sticks!" she stipulated firmly.

"As you wish," Teal'c said, going over to one of the storage lockers. He got two Jaffa training staffs as well as a Blocker, a piece of training equipment that was essentially a big foam block on the end of a plastic bat.

He also got a boxing headgear and put it on Jordan's head despite her protests, in case she accidentally struck herself with the staff weapon. "Demonstrate what you remember before we begin again," Teal'c said, handing her one of the training staffs and stepping aside to give her room on the sparring mat.

Jordan went through the short kata she had already learned. She finished and looked at him expectantly.

"You have indeed been practicing," he said. "Did you know that such forms were intended as one half of a fight?"

"Really?"

"Indeed. I will show you."

For the next twenty minutes, he taught her the way to block and counter an opposing attack based on the form she already knew.

"You learn very quickly. I am proud. Now, for the last ten minutes I will give you permission to attack me in any way you can conceive with your weapon. I will defend myself with the Blocker. If you are good enough, I will consider attacking you back, at which point you will defend yourself. Do you understand?"

"I don't want to hurt you, Uncle Teal'c!"

"You will not hurt me, I assure you. In fact, should you land a single blow, I will not make you perform kel-no-reem today."

"Okay," Jordan agreed immediately.

She had sparred with Teal'c a few times before, with full gear but without weapons, and she had watched Teal'c and her dad box several times, so she knew what was going on, but the addition of weapons was new and exciting.

She made a few hesitant clashes with the blocker. "You are attempting to strike the blocker, not me. I am your target. Attack me. And move your feet when you feel it is necessary."

Jordan came nowhere close to actually landing a blow on Teal'c, but she still had a lot of fun. She wore herself out swinging the stick that was a little taller than she was, over-committing her blows many times and even making herself fall a few times, but she bounced back up unharmed each time.

She was a five-year-old bundle of energy, but after almost an hour of total gym time, she was _almost _glad when Teal'c put the staffs away. He handed her a towel and a bottle of water and led her to his quarters.

"Your father successfully performed kel-no-reem several years ago. And Daniel Jackson meditates often, as do many humans of your world."

"Are you sure you're not just trying to get me to take a nap?" she asked suspiciously, but she sat down on the floor obediently and crossed her legs while he started lighting a few candles.

"I am not. You are scheduled to dine with Sergeant Siler in an hour. There is not time for a nap even if that were my agenda."

"Oh yeah. Okay. I'm ready."

"Good. Then we shall begin."

xxxxx

Teal'c opened his eyes finally and said, "You may open your eyes, Jordan." She opened them slowly and looked at him steadily. "How do you feel?"

Her answer was immediate. "Hungry."

He smiled and tilted his head. "You are definitely a young O'Neill."

"I'm not as tired as I was before. From the sparring."

"That is good. I believe you have made much progress today. You have been focused for nearly twice as long as the last time we attempted meditation, when you were infected with the pox of the chickens."

"Maybe I just gotta be really tired right before," Jordan suggested, getting to her feet. "Uncle Teal'c?"

"Yes?"

"Can you fix my ponytail? It's all messed up from the headgear."

"Very well," he said, removing the elastic holding her ponytail loosely in place. The few other officers in the gym found the sight of Teal's large hands carefully gathering the little girl's hair up into a ponytail to be quite funny. "There you are. Now we must locate Sergeant Siler."

"Okay. Hey, Uncle Teal'c? Remember when we watched Star Wars Episode I, Phantom Menace, when Darth Vader is a little kid?"

"Indeed I do. It is my least favorite of the Star Wars films."

"Yeah, I remember you said that before. But remember when they're training all the kids to be Jedis?"

"I do."

"Can we be like that? For pretend? You can be the master Jedi and I can be the pad… padwon?"

"Padawan learner."

"Yeah! Can I?"

"I would be very pleased with that arrangement, Jordan. Now, we must fulfill our obligations to the SGC."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you must have a picnic, and I must dine with many unpleasant visitors."

xxxxx

Lunch was okay, but Jordan still would have rather been with her mom and dad, seeing what was going on with all the ambassadors at the base. But Siler had peanut butter and jelly, chocolate milk, cookies, and apples and bananas, and they found a bunch of big flat rocks outside that Jordan climbed around on while they ate. She told him about what she'd done so far that day, and he gave her some suggestions for her mini-MALP she was building.

Almost as soon as she finished eating, she was ready to go back inside, eager to go to the infirmary and spend the afternoon with Janet. Siler walked her to the infirmary, but Jordan broke away in the hallway and ran into the infirmary ahead of him on her own.

"Auntie! I'm here!" she called loudly.

Janet came out of her inner office and smiled as the little girl hugged her tightly. Siler said goodbye to them and left them alone, at which point Jordan immediately said, "I've been waiting to see you all day, Auntie!"

"You have? Why? Are you feeling bad?"

"Nope, I feel great! But Auntie, I have some questions. And you're a doctor so I know you know all about it."

"About what?"

"Babies," Jordan answered firmly, climbing up onto the nearest gurney and looking at her expectantly.

"Oh dear," Janet said, pulling a chair up to the edge of the bed.

Jordan crossed her legs as well as her arms and said, "Yes. Babies."

"Jordan, I'm not sure if your mom and dad are ready to…"

"How long does it take for a baby to be born?"

"Oh. Well, that's an easy question. Nine months."

"How long before somebody knows they're going to have one?"

"Well, that depends on the person. Sometimes it's as little as four to six weeks, sometimes much longer."

"They grow in tummies, right?"

"Well… sort of. The uterus, to be specific."

"How do they breathe in there?"

Janet smiled. She didn't know where all these questions were coming from, but they were easy enough to answer.

She answered question after question about fetal growth, and it wasn't until about twenty minutes into the 'interrogation' that Jordan started asking the 'tougher' questions. "How does a baby get in there anyway, Auntie?"

"Well…" she said carefully. "It takes a mom and dad to make a baby."

"How?"

"Each has half of the required material, so they have to put it together."

"How?"

Janet sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon if this line of questioning continued. "Why do you have so many questions about this all of a sudden?" she asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

"No reason," Jordan said quickly. "I just… wondered. My best friend Alex, his mom just had a baby, so… I just wondered."

"I see. Well, you know a lot more already than most kids your age. The rest… I think I'd better talk to your mom and dad first before I tell you anything else."

That, Janet quickly realized, was the wrong thing to say. The possibility that she might be learning something 'forbidden' piqued Jordan's curiosity and stubborn determination all in one. "Why do you have to ask them? It must be something cool…"

"It's just a grown-up topic," Janet tried to explain. "And usually parents like to tell their children where they came from themselves."

"You're a doctor though I bet you know lots more than they do about it. Please? I won't tell them you told me," Jordan tried, giving her a pleading, innocent look.

Janet sighed. The phone rang, and Janet snatched it up quickly. "Fraiser… oh God. Yes, I'm ready now… I hear them coming, thank you."

She hung up the phone and was immediately overwhelmed as SG-3 hurried into the infirmary, carrying Colonel Reynolds on a makeshift stretcher. He was trying not to scream in agony, and was covered with a fair amount of blood. His 2IC started calling out his vitals and what they had assessed so far as she started having him moved to the nearest gurney. Janet was so overwhelmed by the emergency that it was some time before she remembered Jordan, but by the time the thought occurred to her, Jordan was long gone.

At first, Jordan had backed into a corner, terrified, and watched as Colonel Reynolds was brought in on a stretcher surrounded by the other Marines and a bunch of nurses. He was bleeding everywhere. Jordan knew him - he had two kids a little bit older than her, and a toddler too. She had been to their house to play, and their whole family came over for barbecues sometimes. It was very scary for the little girl, wise and precocious as she was, to see him in so much pain, covered in blood. And everyone was yelling… it was so loud. She burst into tears and ran out of the infirmary with one thought in her head: who was closer at the moment, Mommy or Daddy?

xxxxx

Jack was trying to pay extra attention to the diplomatic discussions Daniel was corralling. Since Hammond left to check on the emergency medical return of SG-3, he figured it was important that he at least appear to be paying attention, as he was now the only General left in the room.

All that went out the window when he heard a hysterical voice scream, "Daaaaaaaaaaddddddddy!" before his daughter ran into the room looking around for him frantically. He had got to his feet quickly at the scream, so that she located him almost immediately and threw herself into his arms, sobbing into his neck so hard that he knew any attempts to verbally calm her down wouldn't work. Holding her close, which was unnecessary considering how tightly she was clinging to him, he stroked her hair away from her face while she cried.

The entire table full of ambassadors were trying to find out what was going on, making the room very loud, although still not as loud as Jordan's sobbing. Daniel was being questioned in several alien dialects at once, trying to answer them and make sure Jordan was okay. Finally, over all the noise, Jack called, "Five minute recess," and hurried through the connecting door to his office, not caring about the window between the two rooms that would allow the ambassadors to keep an eye on him anyway.

"Jo, Jo, calm down, sweetheart. What happened?"

He remembered that she was going to spend some time in the afternoon with Janet, and connected that to the emergency with SG-3. "Oh, Jordan… were you with the doc when the Marines came back? Did you see Colonel Reynolds?"

"He's covered in blood, Daddy!"

"I know, Jo… they got into a fight off-world. But he's going to be okay. Auntie will patch him up in no time. She does it to all of us all the time."

"But…"

His phone rang and he answered it quickly. "O'Neill."

"Sir, it's Fraiser - I'm about to go into surgery with Colonel Reynolds but I can't find Jordan. She was here and I'm sure she got scared…"

"She did. She came here, it's okay. Just take care of Reynolds. Is he going to be okay?"

"Yes, he'll be fine. It's messy but not life threatening."

"Good to hear. Thanks, Doc." He hung up the phone. "See? That was Aunt Janet, wanting to make sure you're okay. She's going to take Colonel Reynolds into surgery, but he's going to be okay."

"Promise?"

"Y-yes. Doc said he's going to be fine." She relaxed slightly and shifted so the medals on his jacket weren't poking into her as much. "It was still scary to see, wasn't it?" Jack asked quietly, rummaging around in his desk for a tissue. He cleaned her up as much as possible.

Daniel poked his head through the open door. "Jack? Everything okay in here?"

"Yeah. What about yours?"

"They're… they have a lot of questions for you. You really need to get in here."

"Please don't leave me, Daddy," Jordan pleaded, hugging him tighter around the neck. She was still sniffling and looked like she still felt terrible and exhausted from the scare.

"I won't," he said quietly, kissing the top of her head. "Just… keep quiet in there, okay, kid?"

"Jack, I don't think…" Daniel started.

Jack ignored him and went back into the conference room carrying Jordan in one arm, cradling the back of her head with the other hand. "Sorry about the interruption, folks. As you can see, it's not quiet around here for very long at a time. We had a… situation with one of our team leaders off-world. He's in surgery now, but he's going to be okay."

"And what of this child?" the Ambassador from P53X399 asked, looking at Jordan, who was hiding her face in Jack's neck, curiously. "On my planet, a military base such as this would not be considered an appropriate place for a child." Several people voiced their agreement.

"I know. We don't have children on the base as a rule, but… this is my daughter." Jack sat back down in his chair with his daughter sideways in his lap. Jordan glanced at all the men and women in the room once before curling into his chest so that she couldn't see them.

"Does your planet not have educational institutions for your young?"

"Yes, we do. But… she has the day off from school, and it was short notice. I obviously couldn't stay home with all you folks stopping by, so she's been here today, staying out of the way. She was in the infirmary when Colonel Reynolds was brought in. As I'm sure you can understand, seeing him like that was very scary, and she'd like to stay here with me for a while. So, if there's nothing else, let's get back to…"

"What of the mother of this child? On my planet a child is cared for by the mother when not in school. Surely warriors with reputations such as yourself cannot be expected to care exclusively for your children."

"Well… it's a little different here."

"There are many different cultures on our planet," Daniel interrupted. "With many different customs regarding marriage and the upbringing of children."

"We take equal responsibility for our children here, and as far as our highly-prized warrior skills, those go both ways too," Jack said, his jaw clenching. "In fact…"

Daniel could tell Jack was having his buttons pushed, and tried to intervene. "As I'm sure you are all aware after meeting our top scientist, women in our society can choose whatever career they like."

"We all know Colonel Carter and were most impressed with her intelligence and skill," one of the ambassadors cut in. "We were, however, under the impression that she was rather… exceptional."

"She is," Jack snapped, then forced himself to calm down. Rubbing Jordan's back in comforting circles was doing a remarkable job of keeping him level as well. "But she's smarter than any of the men _or _women in this room, which should be pretty obvious to any of you if you've heard her talk. None of that is the point here. Look - I'm by no means the only person on the planet who feels this way, but for the moment I'm the only one that matters as far as you folks are concerned: my family is more important to me than my job. If anybody has a problem with that, Walter will be happy to send you home now. Otherwise, let's get on with the meeting."

Daniel was inwardly screaming, positive that the whole alliance was about to fall apart. To his surprise, everyone eventually sat down, silently giving their assent. Some looked less pleased about it than others, but most of them seemed to accept or agree with what he had said.

"Good," Jack said, shifting Jordan slightly in his lap so he could keep her balanced with one arm and write with the other.

Jordan let go of his lapels as the meeting started again and she relaxed slightly, still needing the comforting snuggle after the scare. She wrapped her arms loosely around his middle as far as they would go and dozed off nestled into his chest, exhausted from crying so much.

Jack, when he realized she was sleeping, hoped the ambassadors wouldn't take it personally. Then he realized it was going to be even harder to stay awake himself with her warm, slight weight sleeping against him. He started taking notes to help stay awake.

Hammond returned, apologizing for his absence. He assured them all that Colonel Reynolds was recovering already, and took his seat again, noticing Jordan as he sat down. Jack gave him a look warning him not to bring it up again, and the meeting continued.

xxxxx

Hammond called a half-hour break at five. Jordan was still sleeping, but Jack needed to stretch his legs. He got to his feet carefully, moving her as little as possible. She stirred a little but didn't wake. He walked into his office, wanting to get a little bit away from the ambassadors who were talking in small clumps and having refreshments.

Daniel followed him into his office. "Is she okay?"

"I think so. Just tired. It was a long day _before _she was scared so badly in the infirmary. Can you go get an update for me on Reynolds?"

"Yeah, I'll go find Walter."

Just after Daniel left, Sam entered. Noticing the open door and window, she resisted the urge to go to them both immediately as she saw Jordan sleeping in Jack's arms, Jack looking very tired himself. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. She's been asleep for over an hour."

"I was giving the hyperdrive lecture… I didn't know anything was wrong until I went to the infirmary to pick her up and Janet told me what happened…"

"She's okay," Jack repeated. "Just tired. You done for the day?"

"Yeah, thank God."

Jack watched as Sam gathered up Jordan's backpack and the various things she'd brought with her that were still scattered around his office. "Wish I was going with you," he commented as she zipped the little backpack up.

"So do I," Sam said quietly, aware of the curious looks through the Plexiglas window.

"Mommy?" Jordan asked sleepily, hearing the familiar voice. She lifted her head up and looked around sleepily, smiling when she saw Sam.

"Hey, pal. Are you ready to go home?"

Jordan nodded. "But is…"

"I just went down to the infirmary looking for you. I saw Colonel Reynolds and Auntie. He's still sleeping, but he's better now. I bet he'd really like it if you made him a Get Well card when we get home."

"Can I use glitter?" Jordan asked hopefully.

Sam smiled. "Sure."

"Okay." She kissed Jack on the cheek and hugged him extra hard. "Bye Daddy. I love you."

"I love you too, Jo." He set her down carefully and smiled at both of them as Jordan hurried to her mom. Sam crouched down in front of their daughter and hugged her closely, completely enveloping the little girl.

"I'm sorry you had such a scary day, sweetie."

"Just at the end, and Daddy made it better," Jordan said with a dismissive shrug. "The rest was lots of fun."

"Well… you can tell me all about it on the way home," Sam suggested, tipping Jordan's chin up gently so she could kiss her forehead. "Come on, let's get out of here before we make Daddy too jealous that he has to stay."

"Too late," Jack grumbled as Jordan slipped her hand into her mom's. Jordan laughed and waved at him once more before turning to go with her mom. Jack headed back into the briefing room full of diplomats reluctantly, wishing he was on his way home as well.

xxxxx


	5. Evening at Home

Author's Note: Sorry for the lengthy delay between chapters. Two adults verses five children on a long holiday that included looong train rides... you can probably guess the rest.

This chapter is sort of the epitome of warm-fuzzies. The first five have been a sort of introduction - we wanted you all to get fond of Jordan before we got on with the plot, and get a basic idea of how things have developed in the 5 years between the first story and this one, although that will be explained more later as well. Thank you for your continued interest and patience with this one - both are very much appreciated.

Ch 5 - Evening at Home

Jack followed Daniel back into the conference room after saying goodbye to Sam and Jordan reluctantly, wishing he was going home with them instead. "Well, are we ready to get back to the… discussion?" he asked as he sat down and everyone else did as well.

He looked around the table, waiting for Daniel to start talking again. But everyone was looking at Jack, and he suddenly realized how the monkeys in the zoo probably felt.

"Umm… what did I miss?" he asked.

"General O'Neill," the most outspoken of the ambassadors said. "Had we been able to see your daughter's face properly when she joined us earlier, we would have known who her mother is. Why did you not tell us that you and Colonel Carter are married?"

"Well… with all due respect, our personal lives are not relevant to this alliance. I haven't asked you about your wife, have I? You ate lunch with both of us today without finding fault in our professionalism, so…"

"Jack," Daniel said quietly.

"It is all right, Dr. Jackson," the ambassador said quickly. "I think you misunderstand me, General O'Neill. We merely meant that we would not have questioned your daughter's presence so much had we known that Colonel Carter is her mother."

"Oh. Well. In that case. Thanks." Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Your daughter must have great expectations placed upon her with two such important parents."

"Umm… it doesn't exactly work like that…" Jack started.

"She must be very smart."

"Yeah, well…"

"How many years has she?"

"Five… and a half."

"A remarkable child."

"Thanks. Listen…" Jack was getting more uncomfortable by the second. He wasn't sure why, he was probably just being paranoid. He wasn't shy about bragging about his daughter normally, with people from Earth at least. Maybe it was an unwarranted sense of paranoia… but he couldn't help it. Plus, he'd rather get this meeting over with and get home anyway. "Why don't we get back to talking about the territory on P95S2."

xxxxx

Sam was very tired as she headed home. A day of playing nice with bunches of alien ambassadors tended to have that affect. She picked up take away for dinner and followed her daughter inside, quickly putting the alarm on stand-by after she entered.

Jordan immediately set her backpack down by the door and took off her shoes. "Hungry?" Sam asked.

"Yeah."

"Let me just go change, then we'll eat."

"What about Daddy?"

"He'll probably have to eat on the base, but we'll put his in the fridge just in case."

"You rhymed, Mommy," Jordan said with a giggle, climbing into a kitchen chair.

Sam smiled and hurried to the bedroom. She changed into jeans and a tee-shirt and headed back to the kitchen. Jordan had helped herself to a soda, but hadn't opened it yet. She was holding it out to Sam hopefully. Sam sighed and opened it for her -- tomorrow was Saturday, and Jordan had been really well behaved all day, despite the fact that she was on a punishment… which was still basically a joke.

In the car on the way home, Jordan had gone on and on about how much fun she had all day, especially with Teal'c. She was still resolutely quiet about why she'd been so eager to visit Janet in the infirmary. Even Sam couldn't get her to give away that little secret.

But she figured a little soda couldn't hurt, regardless. "Hang, on, let me get you a cup so you don't spill," she said absently as she started getting out plates, glasses, and silverware for dinner.

As they ate their dinner, Sam asked, "So what do you want to do tonight?"

"First I want to make a card for Colonel Reynolds, then… can we make cookies?"

"Sure."

"Can we eat some of the cookie dough?"

"A little bit… if you don't tell Auntie. We don't want that lecture again."

"Deal," Jordan said quickly. "And… then can we paint our nails and watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?"

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Sam said, handing Jordan a napkin to wipe cheese off her chin.

She smiled fondly at her daughter. Jordan was perfectly happy spending the day at a military base… and the highlight of her day had been learning alien staff weaponry with the largest man either of them knew. At the same time, Jordan was still very much a little girl, who loved to watch musicals and eat cookie dough as well.

After dinner, Sam cleared off the kitchen table and spread out a bunch of newspaper to try to somewhat contain the glitter and inevitable mess that would occur when Jordan made a card. Jordan brought in all her construction paper, markers, glue, stickers, crayons, and glitter and happily made a card for Colonel Reynolds.

She decorated the inside with a forest picture, as Sam had told her that if she drew the Stargate on the card he wouldn't be able to take it home with him when he got better. So, she drew a forest and a sun with a happy face. Then she added a rainbow, and a horse. She put some stickers on it as well, signed her name, and wrote GET WELL SOON on the front of the card with a happy face, then traced it in glue and dusted glitter over the letters.

Sam, who was feeling very tired and a little bit queasy, sat across from her, being uncharacteristically still. She watched Jordan work, touched by how much effort and concentration the little girl was putting into the card for the injured Marine. Jordan sat on her knees in her chair, leaning over the table with her tongue slightly poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration.

As she finished, she looked up at her mom and smiled. "What?"

"Do you know how important you are to me?"

"Thor says I'm important too," Jordan said, shrugging and dumping the extra glitter back into the container. She spilled quite a lot of it.

Sam started helping her clean up and kept talking. "Different kind of important," she explained. "Do you like my card?"

"I love it. And I know Colonel Reynolds will be very happy to get it too. Why'd you draw a horse?"

"Because I draw good horses," she shrugged. "Alex draws better dinosaurs but I draw the best horses in my whole class." Jordan stood up in her chair and started brushing glitter off of her shirt and pants. Sam watched it rain down on the chair and kitchen floor, but she couldn't help smiling at her daughter when Jordan realized she was just making the mess worse and looked up at her with a sheepish, apologetic look.

Sam's eyes teared up and she moved around the table and pulled Jordan into a tight hug, kissing the side of her head and rubbing her back. "Mommy… are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Sam said, wiping her eyes. "I don't know what's wrong with me tonight, I guess I'm just tired."

"Happy tears though, right Mommy? Like when Grampa visited last time?"

"Yes, definitely. I just love you, pal."

"I love you too, Mommy… but could you maybe stop crying? It's kind of freaking me out."

Sam laughed and lifted Jordan off of the chair, hugged her close once more, and set her on her feet on the floor. "Let's just move all this stuff aside and make the cookies now. That way we'll just have to clean up the kitchen once."

"Okay."

"First go wash all the glitter and glue off your hands… I don't think we want any of that ending up in the cookies."

"Yeah, good idea," Jordan agreed, going to the sink as Sam started getting out the ingredients for cookies. "Daddy's going to be glad we made cookies when he gets home."

"Definitely," Sam agreed.

"Maybe we should leave some out on the fireplace with a glass of milk for him, like Santa," Jordan suggested.

Sam laughed, but shrugged. "I'm sure he'd like that a lot… although he might not appreciate the comparison to such an old man."

"Yeah," Jordan agreed, laughing as she climbed up onto a stool at the counter so she could help make the cookies.

xxxxx

When they were finished, they were both covered in flour and other various ingredients, although Sam had managed to stay slightly more clean than her daughter, who had flour not only on her clothes, but smeared on her cheeks and in her hair as well.

Sam slid the cookies into the oven and set the timer, then looked around the kitchen, which was now a giant cooking mess on top of a craft mess. Jordan eyed the mess as well, and snapped her fingers loudly.

"Whatcha doing?" Sam asked curiously.

Jordan shrugged. "Just checking. It works on Mary Poppins."

Sam started laughing and couldn't stop for a long time, especially when she looked down at herself and noticed the smeared flour handprints on her shirt and pants. She wiped her finger along the counter and dabbed a bit of flour on the end of her daughter's nose for good measure, then said, "All right, by the time we get this place cleaned up the cookies should be ready."

"Then we can watch the movie!" Jordan agreed, the motivation sufficient enough to make her help clean up - as best as any five year old could be expected to do.

Sam knew Jordan would probably fall asleep during the movie, so she wanted to get her clean and ready for bed first. She helped her into the bathtub and took a shower herself in the separate shower stall while Jordan splashed around in the big tub.

When Sam was done, she helped Jordan wash her hair, and they both got into their pajamas. Jordan put on her favorite nightgown, the white one with little pink flowers, and waited on her parents' bed for her mom, so she could have her wet hair combed out.

Sam, in loose pajama pants and one of Jack's grey undershirts, approached with the comb and the bottle of No More Tangles, then changed her mind. "Let's go start the movie first, and I'll comb it out while we watch."

"Kay," Jordan agreed, taking a flying leap off the bed and running out of the room. Sam sighed. The soda and cookies (and cookie dough) meant that Jordan was probably going to be up way past her bedtime. Luckily it was Friday, and all three of them would be home all day tomorrow.

While they watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sam carefully combed out the long, wet tangles, trying hard not to pull them. Jordan was making it more difficult than usual because she kept bouncing around and dancing in place while she sang along with the songs.

As soon as her hair was finished, she ran off and came back with seven different bottles of nail polish, which she was carrying by holding up the hem of her nightgown to form a little makeshift pouch. Sam laughed and said, "Which color do you want?"

"All of them," Jordan declared, lining up the bottles on the coffee table. "I want to do yours first though. Since you don't have to go to work till Monday you won't have to wash it off this time! Please, Mommy?"

So Sam sat down on the floor, placed her hands on top of the latest Scientific American, and let her carefully manicured nails each be painted a different color by her five year old daughter.

"Excellent," Sam said appreciatively, 'admiring' Jordan's handiwork when she finished. A few of the colors had been repeated on both hands, but each nail was a different color to the ones beside it. And despite the intense concentration, a five year old hand could only do so much with a little bottle of nail polish.

"When they dry, then you can do mine!" Jordan said happily. "Can I have another cookie before they cool off all the way?"

"Sure. Make sure you put the lid back on tight."

Jordan bounced her way into the kitchen, hopping on alternating feet as though she were playing an invisible game of hopscotch. Sam watched her go, shaking her head and laughing quietly. She was just so darn cute. Sam studied her nails again, wondering how exactly Jack would make fun of them when he got home. There really was no question _if _he'd have a light joke about them, just what specifically he would say.

"Mommy could a car like that really fly?" Jordan asked, turning her attention from the television to her mother and wrinkling her nose suspiciously.

"Hmm, what do you think?"

"Well… the wings look pretty flimsy. More like a kite than anything else. But the car doesn't fly like a kite and kites don't really fly anyway, they just sort of float around…"

"You're absolutely right."

"But it's all pretend anyway right? The dad is just telling them a story."

"Yes."

"But his other inventions at the beginning, those are real and those could really work, right?"

"I think so. Is that why you like this movie so much, pal? All the inventions and things?"

She thought for a moment and nodded seriously. "Yes. I like the part at the candy factory a lot too. Oh, the beach this is my favorite song!"

Sam laughed as Jordan's attention switched from assessing the schematics of the flying car to singing along with one of her favorite movies. She knew the choreography. Sam began to think maybe Jordan had watched her favorite movie just a little bit too much.

What goes up must inevitably come down. Shortly after Jordan's arrival in their lives, it had quickly become Sam's favorite law of physics. And when Jordan came down from her sugar high halfway through the movie, Sam was relieved, because she herself was having trouble staying awake.

Jordan had watched most of the movie perched on the edge of one of the chairs, so that she could hop up easily whenever she needed to dance along with the film, or just wanted to move. Like her father, she wasn't very good at being still for too long, unless she had a very good reason to do so.

After they finished with the nail polish, Sam stretched out along the length of the couch, her head turned slightly on a throw pillow so she could alternate between watching Jordan and the movie - her daughter often being far more entertaining than the movie she'd seen over and over.

When Jordan got tired, however, she got cuddly. She was very independent most of the time when she was awake, and although she was affectionate, she also liked to act much older than she was, probably because she was in a class of children two years older, and she spent so much time with adults. But when she was tired, sick, scared, or sometimes just because, she was just five.

Tonight she snuggled into Sam's side on the edge of the couch, on her side so she could see the television. Sam wrapped her arm around her and fashioned a pillow with her shoulder, but Jordan squirmed after a few minutes. "Your shoulder's too small and hard," Jordan complained, trying to make Sam's chest into her new pillow. Sam winced involuntarily, and Jordan looked up at her. "Are you okay, Mommy?"

"Yeah, you… you've just got a hard head there, sweetie."

"That's what Daddy always says," Jordan said with a slight frown.

Sam laughed. "That's not exactly the same thing."

"Oh. Okay." Jordan wriggled even further down the couch and her mother and touched Sam's stomach lightly, looking at her questioningly. "Does that hurt too?"

"No, of course not."

"Cool." Jordan smiled and finally settled in comfortably, crawling over Sam's legs until she was wedged between her mom and the back of the couch, and using Sam's stomach as a pillow, half sprawled across Sam's lower half. Sam smiled down at the mostly-dry blonde head and ran her fingers through her hair, which was always at its curliest right after a bath.

xxxxx

Jack gritted his teeth at the last red light before his neighborhood. Daniel, who was giving Jack a lift home since Sam had taken the truck earlier, glanced at his friend. "At least it's over."

"Yeah," Jack grumbled. He had always hated meetings, but had grown increasingly impatient with them when the alternative to being stuck in a late meeting was being home with his wife and daughter.

Not that Daniel could blame him. Even he had begun to grow impatient with the very slow pace of the day's treaty negotiations.

"You sure you're okay to get on home?" Jack asked as Daniel turned onto his street. "You can have the guest room."

"No, thanks, really, but I'm not that tired. I had a lot more coffee than you. Plus it's only ten minutes."

"All right," Jack said, opening his door, barely letting Daniel roll to a stop first. "See you tomorrow night then."

"What time?"

"Um… well, I'm cooking outside, so better make it early, before it gets dark… say, around six?"

"All right."

"See if T needs a ride from the base too."

"Sure. Bye, Jack."

Jack nodded as he shut the door and headed inside. He had been too tired and impatient to change back into his BDUs on the base, but he had shed his dress jacket and tie as soon as he got in Daniel's car, and had unbuttoned his collar and rolled up his sleeves as well.

He let himself into the house quietly, expecting at least Jordan to be asleep. Sam maybe, even. She had been really tired earlier. He dropped his stuff by the door and toed off his shoes as well. The kitchen light was on, filtering into the living room enough for him to spot the two bodies on the sofa. The title screen for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, on the television, also provided light.

He surveyed the couch carefully, with the sudden rush of feelings that meant he was home.

Sam and Jordan were both sound asleep, Sam on her back, her head on a pillow. Her hair, which was just an inch or two above her shoulders, was even more mussed than usual, so she'd obviously had a shower and let it air dry. Jordan clearly had as well.

Sam was wearing one of the shirts she liked to steal to sleep in, and her cheeks were slightly pink. She was usually a cold sleeper, but then again having a five year old on top of you was as good as an electric blanket, Jack knew. Everyone was always saying how much Jordan looked like Sam, but it was especially evident when Sam was sleeping, because she always looked much younger like that. One of her hands cradled the back of Jordan's head, and the other rested on the skinny little arm draped over her torso.

Jordan, whose head moved slightly up and down with Sam's breathing, was on her side with her head on Sam's stomach, sleeping with her mouth open. A little puddle of drool had formed on Sam's shirt just to the left of her belly button.

Jack lowered himself to the coffee table in front of them and watched them for several long minutes, feeling the tension of the day draining away as he watched their chorused breathing. Finally, he decided that no matter how adorable they looked, they shouldn't spend the night on the couch. They would probably wake up eventually, be uncomfortable… plus he highly doubted he'd be able to sleep alone.

He glanced around the room, noticing all the bottles of nail polish on the table next to him. He peered at their hands after that and could dimly make out their creative manicures in the semi-darkness. He smiled again and wondered what else they'd been up to all night while he'd been in the boring meeting, although he couldn't help but be glad he had missed out on the nail polish party… last time he'd let Jordan do his nails Sam had laughed for hours when she came home. Although to be fair, Sam had seemed much more amused by the fact that Teal'c had let Jordan do his nails too than by the fact that she'd talked her dad into it.

He got up reluctantly and checked all the doors, set the alarm, and went to turn down their beds, leaving the hall light on so he could see. He went into the kitchen to shut off the light and noticed the card drying on the counter, then the Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies. He glanced back towards the living room, then snagged one quickly, transferring half of it to his mouth at once. He finished it quickly, washed it down with the rest of a soda that was sitting on the table, and brushed the crumbs off his hands before shutting off the light and going back into the living room.

Now came the tricky part. Extracting them from each other without waking them. He slid Sam's hand off Jordan's arm, pausing with her hand held in his to examine her nails more closely. He stifled a chuckle as he saw the sloppy, non-matching job Jordan had done, and set her hand down carefully. When he moved her other arm, she stirred.

"It's just me," he said quietly. She settled and didn't wake further. She _was _really tired, Jack realized yet again.

Getting Jordan up into his arms while she was mostly on her stomach was always tricky, especially now, when her legs were tangled around Sam's. It proved impossible. He thought he had done it, but as soon as he had her cradled in his arms she opened her eyes slowly, and smiled up at him. "Hi Daddy."

"Hey, kiddo," he whispered back. "Your mom's still asleep, so let's keep it down, huh?"

"I missed you," she mumbled quietly, cuddling into him further as he started carrying her towards the stairs.

"I would much rather have been here with you tonight, believe me. It looks like you two had fun."

"Yeah," she said sleepily.

"Good cookies."

"Yeah." She was only partially awake, and he didn't have the heart to rouse her enough to make her brush her teeth. They were baby teeth anyway, she'd lose them in a few years… what difference would one night make?

He set her in her bed gently and tucked her in. She curled onto her side immediately and reached for her Homer doll with her eyes closed. Jack put it in her arms and she hugged it close as he tucked the covers around her. "Go back to sleep, huh pal."

He leaned over her carefully and kissed her cheek, surprised when she let go of Homer to snake her arms around his neck and hug him more tightly than he'd have expected, since she was barely awake. "Love you Daddy."

"I love you too, Jo. Sweet dreams." He kissed her again and stifled a groan as his back twinged while he stood up straight. He left the room quietly, closing the door almost all the way, and went back downstairs.

That was the easy part. Now came the dilemma: wake Sam or try not to. He sat down on the edge of the couch next to her and studied her sleeping face more closely. She seemed to be deep asleep, not just dozing. He touched her hand experimentally, then lightly ran his hand up her arm and stroked her shoulder with his thumb.

"You're zonked," he informed her quietly, although he knew she couldn't hear him. "Okay. I guess while the knees… and back… still aren't complaining too loudly, I better get all the miles out of them I can." He stood back up, slid his arms under her, and lifted her up easily, though not quite as easily as he had done with their tiny daughter.

Climbing up the stairs yet again, he marvelled at how completely dead-to-the-world his wife was. She was normally a fairly light sleeper, at least until the early morning hours when she had the tendency to suddenly become impossible to awaken until she was good and ready to get up. He deposited her in their bed and quickly got ready for bed himself, then slid in next to her and spooned himself against her, pressing a hand to her forehead, just in case, but her skin was cool.

He kissed her on the cheek gently and told her goodnight even though she couldn't hear him, and found himself falling asleep almost immediately as well. His last conscious thought was relief that tomorrow was Saturday, as all three of them had certainly had a very long day.

xxxxx


	6. Bad Saturday

A/N: We've got absolutely no excuse for the slow pace of these updates. All I can do is promise to try to get them out much, much faster from now on, now that the main plot of the story is starting. We know how frustrating it is to be left on a cliffhanger... we'll do the best we can. Thank you all for your unbelievable patience with this story, to those of you who are resolutely sticking it out!

Ch 6 - Bad Saturday

Jordan woke up and remembered it was Saturday. That meant her parents would want to sleep late – her mom much later than her dad, probably. She liked Saturday mornings, when she could get up and watch some cartoons by herself for a while. Then her dad would get up and watch with her. When her mom got up they'd make breakfast. Or if her mom was sleeping really, really late, she and her dad would make breakfast and maybe take it to her in bed, although if they did that they probably shouldn't fix pancakes or waffles… the last time, the syrup in the sheets had been a really big mess.

Jordan scrambled out of bed and ran into her bathroom to brush her teeth and use the toilet. She tiptoed past her parent's bedroom so she wouldn't wake them up, running again when she got to the stairs, and jumping the last three, only remembering _after _she'd made a sizeable _thud _that she 1) wasn't supposed to do that and 2) risked waking up her parents. She peered upstairs for a moment, but when she didn't hear anybody getting up she continued on her way. She went into the kitchen to the refrigerator, pulled open the door and grabbed the milk with both hands, standing up on her tiptoes to set it on the counter. It teetered near the edge, but she didn't notice. She went back to the fridge to shut the door, and the milk tumbled to the ground, bursting open and splashing everywhere.

xxxxx

"Hey. What time did you get home?" Sam asked, cuddling closer to Jack as she woke up, kissing his shoulder.

"Not too late. You were already asleep though. With Jo." He sounded less awake than she was, his words slurring together.

"I was so tired last night – I don't even remember you moving me back here."

"Yeah. I noticed that last night when you didn't wake up at all when I picked you up. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I feel fine now."

"Good."

"I've just been a little busy lately I guess."

"Lately? As in… since you were Jordan's age?" He nudged her lightly and sounded like he was smiling. He always woke up really fast, whereas it took Sam quite a while to get her brain fully functioning in the mornings.

Then again, as Jack always pointed out whenever she brought the contrast up, her 'fully functioning' brain was a lot more powerful than his. He had once compared it to the difference between stadium lighting and Jordan's star night light, although Sam of course had known since shortly after meeting him that he was at least ten times smarter than he wanted people to think.

"Ha ha," she responded automatically when he squeezed her waist lightly to see if she was still awake, or awake enough to respond to his attempted banter.

"Well, I'm not convinced. I think you need to stay off your feet for a while. I'm afraid I must insist you stay in bed."

Sam turned on her side so she could see his face and said, "In that case, I must insist you keep me company."

xxxxx

Jordan turned towards the crashing sound with a start and pulled open the bottom drawer so she could scramble up to the counter for some paper towels. Pulling lots of them down, she started trying to soak up the mess, the hem of her nightgown getting wet in the process. She used up all the paper towels and decided she needed a real towel, so she stepped carefully around the wet floor and headed for the hall bathroom.

She stopped in the living room when she heard a noise at the sliding door that lead to the patio. She ran over to the door and looked down at the source of the noise in surprise. There was a little grey and white kitten sitting there, meowing and scratching at the glass door.

"Hi, kitty," she said with a smile, unlocking the sliding door. She grabbed the handle, throwing all her weight against it as she slid it open. She picked up the kitten carefully, looking around the backyard for a mommy cat or a person who might have lost their kitten, but the backyard looked the same as always.

She slammed the door shut and sat down on the floor, carefully inspecting and petting the kitten. "Where's your mommy?" she asked it. "Mine's upstairs, sleeping. I don't know if she'll let me keep you. Daddy said we can get a dog in the summer, but you're okay too. Hey! You can help me clean up the kitchen!"

Remembering that cats liked milk, she carried the kitten into the kitchen and set it down near the puddle of milk, smiling down at the kitten as it started lapping up the milk eagerly. Jordan, satisfied that the kitten would take care of the mess, poured herself a bowl of cereal and poured chocolate milk into it instead of regular. She grabbed a spoon and took her breakfast into the living room, then went back for the kitten, leaving the mess partially cleaned up in the completely unintentional way that only a small child can get away with.

She ate her cereal, feeding bits of it to the kitten as well, and turned on the television. "Saturdays I like to watch cartoons till Daddy gets up," she told the kitten, finding the proper channel. "Do you have a name?"

The kitten had something like a collar attached to its neck, so Jordan carefully removed it and looked at it closely, holding the kitten in her lap and trying to see if there was anything written on the jewel thingy on the collar. It was sort of like a stone, with some funny markings on it…

She turned it over in her hands, feeling it warm up, probably from holding it, and then was quickly swallowed up by a bright white light. The living room was immediately devoid of all five year old girls and little grey kittens.

xxxxx

"Hmmm, Jordan tracks," Jack commented as they entered the living room, taking in the partially-eaten bowl of cereal and the blaring television.

"Where could she be?" Sam called dramatically, expecting to find her in the kitchen. The kitchen was empty. Sam groaned at the puddle of milk that was drying on the floor next to a small mountain of soggy paper towels.

"Uh-oh," Jack said. "Jo! Where are ya?"

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Sam called loudly, opening the pantry door, expecting Jordan to pop out at her. The only thing that fell out of the pantry was the broom. She shoved it back inside and shut the door as Jack started loudly opening and shutting all the cupboards.

"Okay, Jordan, this isn't funny anymore, there's a huge mess in the kitchen…" Jack called as he headed to the laundry room to continue searching for her.

"Jack…" Sam started. She was really starting to get worried. She would have burst out from behind a sofa or a doorway giggling long ago if she'd been playing…And while Jordan certainly enjoyed her little games, she wouldn't be hiding for this long if she could hear their tones of voice.

"Keep looking," Jack said, trying not to sound concerned yet. "Maybe… she can't hear us."

They exchanged looks - neither of them really believed that. Still, maybe there was an explanation that didn't warrant panicking just yet…

"Jordan O'Neill, answer me, right now!"

"You're scaring us, baby, this isn't funny!"

They searched the house, growing increasingly frantic when they couldn't find their daughter. "Jack…" Sam was almost hysterical when they met up in Jordan's room and neither of them had found any trace of her, and they were both now way past the point of panicking.

"She wouldn't leave the house, would she?" Jack demanded, although he knew that she wouldn't. "Jordan!

"No… and we would have heard something, the alarm is still set… should we call the police or…"

"Yeah. No, wait. Let's get a team from the base in here first. Our guys can check for things the police may miss and they'll be fast and do it right…"

He had already picked up the phone and was dialling the base. "We'll find her, Sam," he muttered, punching the numbers on the phone as hard as possible, as though it might help somehow. When he heard the phone get picked up on the other end, he started barking orders as Sam started pacing around the messy room. "This is General O'Neill, we need a forensics team at our house immediately! I want SG-3 and 5 here too and Daniel and Teal'c… no, wait, stop all gate travel immediately and get them to start interrogating every alien from yesterday that's still on the base, and send teams to the ones who've already been sent home. I need road blocks set up in broadening five mile perimeters outside our house and get the local police to keep the media even farther away than that… what do you mean WHY? Jordan's GONE, right out of our house, and I'm not wasting another second telling YOU about it when you should already have half of that DONE!"

He took a break from yelling into the phone to turn to Sam and see if he'd forgotten anything. "Sam?" She stopped pacing suddenly, met his eye for a second, and then collapsed. He dropped the phone and hurried across the messy bedroom, stepping on a stuffed elephant in a tutu on his way to her that, when stepped on, suddenly filled the room with a high-pitched rendition of "Happy Birthday." Kicking the offensive animal out of the way with a frustrated, "Goddamn build-a-bear," he crouched next to Sam and felt her pulse worriedly.

Of course they were both completely terrified, but Sam just _didn't _faint. Unless she'd been shot by an alien stunner, or invaded by an ascended being or something. "Sam, come on, wake up, I need you here." She was pale, and cold. He scooped her up and hurried over to Jordan's bed, depositing her on top of the unmade covers and pressing a hand to her forehead before remembering the phone.

Swearing loudly, suddenly infuriated with how messy the room was - it was slowing down everything he was trying to do, wasting time they couldn't afford to waste! - he finally found where he'd dropped the phone. He pressed it to his ear and could hear that the people at the SGC were already scrambling into action.

He was about to demand to speak to Janet also when Sam suddenly jerked awake, sitting up so fast her head spun again and she had to lie back down. "Easy," Jack ordered.

She shook her head and reached for his arm. He pulled her up to a sitting position as she forced her head to stop swimming. "What… how long did I?"

"Less than a minute. Everyone's on their way, are you okay…"

"The answer to that question is going to be NO! until I know where my daughter is, and don't even _think _about telling Janet what just happened, Jack. She's not strapping me to a bed in the infirmary and keeping me out of the loop while everyone else looks for Jordan and…"

"Okay, okay," Jack interrupted, hugging her to him so tightly he knew he had to be hurting her. She was shaking though, and trying to get up at the same time, although her body clearly had other ideas. "I'm not, I'm not going to tell anyone, honey I don't want that to happen either but you'd better be still till they get here or they're going to notice on their own and then we can't …"

She nodded and realized he was right - she had to get herself somewhat under control, at least to the point where she wasn't in danger of passing out, or somebody would interfere and she'd be left out whether she liked it or not, and what good would she be to her daughter then?

Furious with herself, she leaned into her husband heavily and tried to slow down her breathing so the room would stop spinning and flashing to black. This wasn't how she acted in a crisis, for crying out loud! Then again, nothing this terrifying had ever happened to them before.

xxxxx

Jordan's tummy lurched as she was rematerialized. She'd experienced the sensation a few other times, when she got to go and see Thor on his ship, but her mom and dad, and usually Uncle Teal'c and Uncle Daniel, had always been with her and she knew what was coming - she'd never been taken by surprise before. She was still hugging the kitten tightly, although it was mewling loudly and scratching her arms to get away. It caught her good on her right forearm and surprised her into dropping it.

Before she could bend down to pick it up again, the doors of the tiny, dark room she was in opened and light poured in so fast it hurt her eyes. She caught a glimpse of the figure in the doorway, and knew instantly that it definitely wasn't Thor. She let out a terrified scream, then felt like she was falling as everything went black again…


	7. The Search Begins

A/N: Much better on the time frame this time, huh?

The bad guy in this story was entirely Kate's idea- I'm actually surprised they haven't done something like this on the show yet. He'll be explained more clearly as the story progresses, of course. Enjoy.

Ch 7 - The Search Begins

When General Hammond arrived at the O'Neill household, it hit him like a wave. He'd heard O'Neill's frantic call to the SGC, and knew what had happened and what needed to be done, and what his part in it would be. But it wasn't until he pulled into their driveway that he really _felt _what he'd known intellectually for almost twelve minutes now.

The brilliant, beautiful, spunky little girl that he had always thought of as his youngest grandchild was gone. Just… gone. From her house, on what was supposed to be a leisurely Saturday morning, with her highly-trained, highly-decorated, high-ranking USAF parents right there.

Between the two of them, they'd saved Earth, and how many other planets, how many times? Several dozen, at least. They were supposed to be safe here, on Earth, in their home. What the hell had happened here?

Hammond got out of his car and slammed the door. He'd do everything he could to answer that question, and get that little girl back where she belonged. And he had the entire SGC one hundred percent behind him.

xxxxx

When Jordan woke up, she was lying on a cold, smooth black floor. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked around the brightly lit room. It was a big room, with no corners. The walls were all curved, and the ceiling was very, very high. She looked around, scared. The room was cold, but not as cold as the floor on her bare feet. The air felt old, and the room sort of looked like it might have been part of Thor's ship. But Thor's ship wasn't scary at all - it was awesome. This place was scary.

"Kitty?" she asked hopefully, looking around the empty room, although she could already tell the kitten wasn't there anymore.

The door opened again with a whooshing sound. She scrambled back against the farthest wall, wishing there was something she could hold onto. She was expecting an alien to appear. She was almost sure she was on a bad alien ship of some kind, and she remembered seeing an alien right before everything went black. But she'd never seen an alien like the one who appeared in front of her now.

She was almost exactly Thor's height now, but this alien was way bigger than her. Not as big as her dad or mom, but still big. Maybe about as tall as Aunt Janet, she decided. It was hard to tell, because the alien was so scary that he seemed really, really big, although when she made herself look at him just a little at a time, she could see that he did have pretty skinny arms and legs. Not as skinny as Thor's, but still long and thin. He was naked and had big black eyes but a way pointier, flatter face than Thor, and his skin was scaly looking, greenish and brownish and slimy, not like Thor's pretty, smooth grey skin at all.

"You have regained consciousness, I see. Much faster than your body mass's projected estimation."

She knew she was staring at the alien, with her mouth wide open, but she was way too scared to think of anything to say. His voice sounded funny too. He scared her more than she ever remembered being scared in her life, just by standing there in the doorway. The back of her neck and her tummy were all tingly and… wrong feeling.

"I know that you can speak, Jordan."

Her own eyes got even bigger in surprise that he knew her name.

"Yes. I know who you are, Jordan Janet Carter O'Neill. In fact, I know almost everything about you. And pretty soon I will know the rest. Inside and out."

Jordan swallowed hard and tried to back away more, but there wasn't anywhere else to go. Stammering slightly, she felt like she had to say _something. _She didn't know if it would work on this alien, but it worked the last time somebody tried to bully her around... "When m-my Mommy and D-daddy find me they're going to kick your ass."

xxxxx

When Hammond rapped sharply on the front door to the O'Neill house, it was opened almost immediately. He thought he'd seen both these people at their absolute worst before - more than once, even. He was wrong. When they answered the door, they looked like two people who'd recently been violently shattered and were now racing desperately to put themselves back together enough to do what needed to be done, playing catch-up at the expense of their own feelings and sanity.

They were both in wrinkled pajamas with messy hair. Sam was holding the Homer Simpson doll Jordan had slept with all her life at her side, dangling from her hand by one faded yellow arm, like she didn't know she was still holding it, but at the same time couldn't have been made to part with it for anything in the world. She was on the phone, extremely pale. Jack might have been pale too, but his stubble was hiding it. Jack let Hammond in like it was a reflex, but both of them forgot to move out of the doorway.

Sam said a few more words into the phone as Hammond squeezed past them, squeezing Jack's arm supportively. "The alarm company confirmed what I got from the main unit - nobody entered from outside, nobody disengaged the alarm," she said as she clicked the phone off and let it drop to her side. "They confirm that the sliding door was unlocked from the inside and opened for less than two seconds, then closed again."

"Jordan opened the door from the inside? And the alarm didn't go off?" Hammond asked, for clarification.

Sam shook her head. "You've got ten seconds to open and shut a door from the inside when we're here. And that door doesn't even unlock from the outside."

"Jordan would not let a person into this house, especially through that door," Jack said firmly.

"I know," Sam said. "But it's the only thing we've got to go on so far."

"We'll see what we can do about that," Hammond said as several vehicles pulled in behind his car and personnel started pouring out. "Forensics inside only first!" Hammond ordered. "I don't want any potential evidence destroyed. Jack, Sam, I'm going to need you to go through everything, in as much detail as possible. I'm sorry, I know this must be… I'll make sure you only have to do this once."

xxxxx

The alien narrowed his big black eyes slightly and leaned over so he was closer to Jordan's level in response to her threat. She wrinkled her nose. He smelled terrible - worse than the time she'd accidentally left a tuna fish sandwich in the back of her dad's truck all weekend. He made a growling sort of noise, and she was expecting him to say something scary and threatening against what she'd said, but he just started laughing - an evil, echoing laugh that made her stomach turn. He was so gross… but so close to her now, trying to scare her - and succeeding.

Still… he was bigger than her, but not _that _much bigger. Matthew Reed had fatter arms than this guy, for crying out loud! She took a deep breath and punched him as hard as she could, right in the stomach - or where his stomach would be if his stomach was in about the same place as it was in humans.

She got lucky, catching him by surprise. He'd underestimated her, expecting her to be so afraid she'd be frozen stiff. He reeled backwards from the punch, and when he was bent over, she poked him in the eye, hard. He howled loudly, making a terrifying sound, and she ran past him as he clutched at his eye. She made it out the door, and was halfway down the bare corridor, looking for somewhere to go or hide, when the alien called, "Oh, Miss O'Neeeeeeiilllllllllll! I'd stop running if I were you."

Of course she didn't. She kept running, and ran smack into some sort of invisible shield or wall or something. She bounced right off of it, falling to the ground, and cried out in pain before she could help it. She scrambled to her feet and turned around in time to see the alien getting close to her again. She looked around for somewhere to go, but she was trapped, again.

"There is no escape for you, Jordan," he said, in what might have been a soothing tone if it wasn't full of such underlying malice. "Should you be able to overpower me, which is impossible, you would still be stuck on a ship in the middle of space, with no way to contact anyone, no idea where you were, and no way to operate this ship's systems. You will be my guest until I have learned everything I need to know from you."

As he got closer to her, she could see that he was now holding the kitten by the scruff of the neck, in one claw-like hand. The kitten was mewling loudly and contorting around, trying to get away. "At the moment you have no control over your own fate. I was going to show mercy to this creature, on your behalf, but you should not have attacked me just now. I am not, at the moment, feeling very merciful."

He grabbed the kitten in both hands, one twisted around its neck as if he was about to snap it right in two. "No, don't!" Jordan screamed, horrified. "Please!"

"You do not want me to harm this creature?"

"No! Let him go, please!" she begged.

"I believe we have begun our trip together on the wrong foot, as your people say. Would you like to strike a deal?"

"What deal?"

"I will return this feline to Earth, to the very cage from which I plucked it. It will be completely unharmed. And you will not continually try my patience and waste both our time in futile attempts to physically attack me and escape."

"How do I know you're really sending the kitten back to Earth? You could just be zapping it out into space or something."

"You will accompany me to the bridge and watch on a display."

She hesitated for a second, biting her lip and looking back and forth between the tiny kitten and the alien. She knew she was trapped… but there was no reason the poor kitten had to be trapped too. "Okay," she agreed.

xxxxx

Hammond had listened to Jack and Sam's account of events while the forensics team made their way through the house. "I'm going to get a progress report from Daniel and Teal'c," Jack said as soon as they were done, picking up the phone.

"What have you found?" Sam demanded as the lead forensics guy, Lieutenant Allen, approached Hammond to give him an update.

"So far, we've confirmed no suspicious prints on the outside of the sliding door. Jordan's are on the inside lock and handle, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were left there this morning… we've lifted tons of prints from the rest of the house and taken samples of the bowl of cereal and the mess in the kitchen, but… I'm sorry, ma'am, right now we don't have much to go on. Nothing is standing out forensically."

"That could confirm that she was taken by an alien," Sam said. "Jack, get Daniel to call Thor if he hasn't already!"

On the phone three feet away, he nodded and repeated the request into the phone.

"Colonel," Hammond said, squeezing her elbow gently. "I don't think an alien would require her to open a door. And Thor's put protection on your house, hasn't he?"

"Yes… nobody's supposed to be able to lock onto a life sign in here to beam in or out, but… sir, surely you don't think this is just some sort of coincidence, that some human did this?"

"Sam… as much as I hate to say this, unfortunately there are plenty of people in this world just as bad as some of those we've encountered from other worlds."

"I know, but that just doesn't make sense," Sam insisted. "Who would go to the trouble to break into a heavily secured house on a Saturday morning to take a little girl whose parents are in the house at the time, finding out a way to do so without being detected… at the very least, the amount of planning that would require would mean that Jordan was a target, not a random victim, in which case whoever took her would know that her parents were Air Force officers. Why try to take her now, why not while she was at school, or at a friend's house, or last night when she and I were here alone? It just doesn't fit, sir."

"It does seem unlikely, but we still have to investigate this from every possible angle. We can't focus all our efforts on searching the skies when she could still be on earth somewhere, maybe even still be in Colorado," Hammond said, firm but sympathetic at the same time.

"You're right," Sam said reluctantly.

Jack hung up the phone and turned back to them. "Daniel and Teal'c are halfway through the remaining ambassadors with no luck so far, and they've sent SG teams after the ones who'd already left."

"Sir, we've done all we can here, collecting. We're ready to get back and begin processing," Lt. Allen said. "If you're ready for me to send in the dogs…"

"Yes," Hammond said. "Get the scent dogs."

"Jordan's smell is going to be all over the house," Sam said, holding the Homer Simpson doll she hadn't let go of up to her nose and breathing deeply, her eyes slipping shut for a moment as a few tears slipped out. She wiped them away angrily, forcing herself to focus.

"I know, but they might be able to follow it _out _of the house," Hammond reminded. "Or they might pick up on something else."

Two bloodhounds led their handlers in on leashes, sniffed for a few seconds, and both headed straight for the drying puddle of milk on the floor, whining and wagging their tails, going crazy. After they were dragged off the spot, they headed to the sliding door, out onto the back porch, and stopped. "Okay, that was something," Jack said. "Make sure they analyze the spilled milk sample first."

Hammond nodded and went out to catch the forensics team.

xxxxx

Jordan watched carefully as the alien set the kitten down in the middle of the floor and went over to a console like the ones on Thor's ship. He also had a big display that appeared where the window thing was - although Thor had told her that it wasn't technically a window because glass wouldn't hold up. He slid some black stones around on the console and she could see the inside of a pet store or animal shelter on the display. "Where is that?" Jordan asked.

"Earth," the alien responded.

"Why did you use a kitten anyway?"

"Two reasons. My research shows that human children are fond of small animals such as kittens and puppies. I correctly assumed that you would grant such a creature access to your home."

"What's the second reason?" she asked.

Without giving her a chance to say goodbye to the little thing, he sent the kitten back to Earth in a flash of white light and replied cryptically, "Irony."


	8. Very Scared

Ch 8

Just as suddenly as the house had been filled with SGC personnel, it seemed, it was empty once again. Only Hammond remained with Jack and Sam, to drive them up to the base. He waited in the kitchen for them while they went upstairs to change, his eyes finally settling on the homemade card drying on the counter. He picked it up carefully and smiled to himself as he looked at it.

"She made that for Reynolds," Sam offered.

Hammond looked up at them both, startled out of his reverie, and cleared his throat. "I'll make sure he gets it," he promised.

"Thank you," Sam said quietly.

They followed Hammond out to his car, moving as though they were both sleepwalking, like they were somehow still hoping at the back of their heads that they'd wake up and realize this was all a terrible nightmare.

xxxxx

Jordan's burst of bravery expired when the kitten was sent back to Earth, and she suddenly realized all over again that she was now completely alone with a very scary alien. Her eyes started to fill up with tears but she didn't want him to know she was scared, so she stomped over to the 'window' loudly and crossed her arms, looking out at the diminishing view of Earth.

The alien left her alone for a few minutes while he went about his own business, then said, "Come with me."

"Where?"

"I will escort you back to your room."

"Why? You already said I can't get off this ship."

"That is true. But I believe after leaving you alone for some time you will be more amenable to my proposal."

"Huh?"

Ignoring the question, the alien grabbed her arm and started half-dragging her down a corridor. "In case you were curious, Miss O'Neill, you and I are currently the only living things on this ship. Should you escape from your room - unlikely though it would be - it would be most easy for me to detect your life signs and locate your whereabouts."

He opened the door to her 'room' and nudged her inside. "Wait…" Jordan started, but it was too late. He closed the door, leaving the room in pitch black. Jordan felt her way over to a wall, curled up in a little ball, and started to cry. Once she started, she couldn't stop. She cried huge wracking sobs that shook her whole body, because all of the feelings she was trying to handle were just way too big for somebody so very small. She cried until she had exhausted herself completely, and then fell into a deep sleep, the sort of healing sleep that only children can manage after such an ordeal.

xxxxx

As soon as they got to the base, Jack and Sam went in search of Daniel and Teal'c. Hammond suspected that's where they'd go, even though he'd specifically ordered them to stay clear of the interrogations, knowing that neither of them could be expected to keep it together while questioning someone who might be responsible for their daughter's disappearance.

As it was, he'd given strict orders to the guards "assisting" Daniel and Teal'c that should either of them find someone who was starting to look suspicious, both men would probably react… strongly. Hammond had been forced to authorize the guards to zat either of them if the alternative was letting one of them kill someone in their custody. So far it hadn't been necessary… although that unfortunately just meant they were getting nowhere with the interrogations.

When Jack and Sam each knocked on one of the doors, Teal'c and Daniel recognized the respective knocks and halted their interrogations of the alien ambassadors, hurrying out to the hallway to congregate. It was the first time they'd seen each other since Jordan had disappeared. They all just exchanged devastated, frustrated looks for several moments before Jack asked, "Any luck?"

"Not yet," Daniel admitted.

"I am sorry, O'Neill. So far I have not seen anyone who could be responsible for what has happened."

"This can't just be a coincidence that after they were all here and they all saw her yesterday…" Jack said.

"It's starting to look like this might just be a dead end," Daniel said gently, trying to prepare them for the possibility that if they were to turn up a lead, it wasn't going to be with one of these ambassadors.

"That's not good enough, Daniel," Jack snapped.

"Jack, we're all taking our jobs seriously here. We're not about to let somebody get away with something. But if none of these people are responsible we can't just treat them like criminals because they were here yesterday. These are ambassadors!"

"One of whom, if you recall, had a _lot _of questions about Jordan," Jack reminded him through gritted teeth.

"Which one?" Sam asked sharply - she had not been there for that encounter.

"Adlar," Daniel supplied. "He was the first one to leave."

"Conveniently," Jack snapped sarcastically.

"SG-8 has gone to retrieve him."

"Dad!" Sam exclaimed suddenly. "We need to call Dad right now!"

"I sent a message to your dad already, Sam," Daniel told her. "The Tok'ra promised to get it to him as quickly as possible."

"No! I mean, great, thank you, but we need him here NOW. And we need him to bring…"

"A Xanax detector," Jack finished, realizing where she was going. Normally he hated the damned things… but if one of them could help him find out what happened to his daughter…

"Zaytarc detector," Sam corrected/explained for Teal'c and Daniel.

"Those things _hurt,_" Daniel reminded. "_And _as I'm sure you both remember, they give false positives."

"Not ALL the time," Sam defended, never having thought she of all people would end up _endorsing _zaytarc detectors. But desperate times… "And it's worth a try," she finished firmly.

"I'm just saying, any of the ambassadors who agree to such an intrusive procedure probably don't have anything to hide… and considering the circumstances I don't think you'll be able to justify that refusing to submit to the procedure is proof in and of itself of guilt…"

"Do you even _care _that Jordan is gone, Daniel??" Jack snapped harshly.

"How can you even ask that, Jack? Of course I care, you _know _that. I'm just trying to make sure we don't waste time looking in the wrong places."

"Oh, what a marvelous idea! Why didn't we think of that before? Let's just skip all this pesky investigating of places where she isn't and go look exactly where she is!"

Before they could actually start a physical fight, which both seemed gearing up to do, Hammond stepped off the elevator purposefully. "You two," he ordered, pointing at Jack and Sam. "I ordered you to stay off this level and this is the first place you went. I'm trying to work with you here but if you don't give me any other choice I _will _order you both off the base entirely…"

"We're going," Jack interrupted impatiently.

Sam nodded and hugged Daniel, who was closest to her. "I know you're helping, just… be really, really positive before you clear someone, okay?"

"We are, Sam. You know we love Jordan more than anything," Daniel reassured her, as Teal'c and Jack exchanged a hug as well.

Teal'c then hugged Sam, both of them looking at Daniel and Jack pointedly. The two men, who'd been arguing moments before, nonetheless hugged each other. It started off as just for show so they could all move on with the more important issue at hand - finding a lead to Jordan's whereabouts. But after a moment they both realized they'd just been yelling at each other because they provided such easy targets for each other at times like these. They mumbled slightly awkward apologies to each other before all four promised to keep the rest updated on any progress.

Jack and Sam then turned to follow Hammond onto the elevator. "Where to?" he asked after the doors closed.

"Gate room," they both said.

At the look they were getting, Sam explained, "We have to tell my Dad what to pack, sir."

xxxxx

When Jordan woke up, she was still upset, but in a weary sort of way. The overwhelming urge to sob loudly at the injustice of her day had dissipated as she slept. She wiped her face off with the hem of her nightgown and sat up, back against the cold wall. She curled up in a little ball, hugging her knees, and still trying to calm herself down to Just One Thought - like Uncle Teal'c was always telling her to do when he made her do kel-no-reem.

She was scared, and sad, and cold, and she just wanted to go home, dammit! Her eyes widened because she had thought a Bad Word, and she knew neither of her parents liked her to use words like that. Still, they always explained to her that there were times and places when those words were okay. This sure felt like one of those times.

Besides, nobody could hear her - except for maybe the alien who'd kidnapped her. But _he _certainly wouldn't tell her parents and get her into trouble for it…

She took a deep breath and said experimentally, "Damn."

Nothing happened, except maybe she felt just a tiny bit better and a little bit braver.

"Dammit! Hell damn ass dammit hell!"

Perking up, she sat up straight and let go of her knees until she was sitting cross-legged, no longer curled up in a defensive ball. She knew even worse words than those… her parents would let those words slide every once in a while, but there was a whole separate group of words that were way worse. She wasn't exactly sure why… Uncle Daniel had once tried to explain to her about words and social tattoos… no, not tattoos. She frowned as she tried to remember what they were called. Taboos! That was it. Anyway, he had talked for a long time but she still didn't understand why some words were okay to say and some weren't. But here… here she could say _anything _she wanted.

And that made her fell much less helpless and scared than she had been feeling while she had been crying. She took a deep breath and started screaming every word she could ever remember her parents telling her not to say.

xxxxx

After sending their message to the Tok'ra, Sam practically booted poor Walter, the gate technician, right out of his chair. He was used to having to get out of her way, but she was usually at least marginally polite about it, even in dire emergencies. Not that he blamed her, considering the circumstances. Everyone loved Jordan. "Ma'am, if there's anything I can help you with," he offered gently, even as he took a step back from her, just as a precaution.

"Yes. We need to start going through the gate's feedback code from every time the gate has been activated since we started sending the ambassadors home."

"Yes, ma'am." While he didn't understand why, it certainly wasn't his place to question the Lt. Col. As he started pulling up the information she requested from a different terminal, while she started typing commands into hers, O'Neill settled a hand on her shoulder and asked, "What…"

"If someone took her through the gate using a cloaking device, there should be an extra energy signature. We can sync up the surveillance tapes and go through the code the gate spits back into the computers while it's active and make sure the numbers all add up. If there's an anomaly, we can separate them. If we find an extra one we can find Jordan's specific energy signature from some other time she's gone through the gate and compare them. If the numbers all add up on a first run through, we can start separating each ambassador's signature from their arrival and comparing those to the ones the gate registered when they left. Maybe someone anticipated we could check the numbers of outgoing travelers verses the number on the video monitors fairly easily. They could have sent Jordan through, cloaked, with the party they arrived with, and then gone through themselves with another group so the numbers on the group with Jordan would be right…" Her fingers were going even faster than her mouth at the moment, as she programmed the computer to do what she was explaining to her husband.

"Good idea," he interrupted, getting the general idea - which was all he really needed when it came to her ideas. Explaining to him more fully would just waste time they certainly didn't have. "How many lines of code are we talking about here?"

"First wave, probably about half a million. If nothing shows up on those and we have to do the more detailed search… at least four times that."

He nodded and stepped back, getting out of her way. He looked around, frustrated. Teal'c and Daniel were doing the interviews, Sam was doing the computer stuff… what was he supposed to do? Standing around waiting for everyone else to find his daughter certainly wasn't an option. They'd called Jacob, sent a message to Thor, Hammond was briefing the President at the moment… Jack had to do _something. _

For starters, he could get his wife some coffee… if Sam was going to be going through millions of lines of code, he might actually need to consider stealing an IV from Fraiser and starting a coffee-filled central line or something. For the time being, he settled for stealing Daniel's huge thermos from his office and filling that. It was something to do… not much, but something. Still, it didn't take long, and as soon as he'd set it in front of the keyboard he needed something else to do.

He thought for a moment and then hurried over to the phone on the wall. "This is O'Neill, get me the head of the forensics team that was just at my house." If the rest of his team had the aliens and the stargate covered, Jack could at least lead the earth-bound investigation.

xxxxx

After over an hour, Jordan was all sworn out. She had said every bad word she knew as many times as she wanted, and made up several creative new combinations of a lot of those words as well. The novelty of being able to swear with impunity did eventually wear off though, and the room grew quiet again as Jordan's thoughts returned to Earth.

She sighed. She didn't want to start crying again. She had to be brave. Wasn't everybody always saying how brave her mom and dad and uncles were? She was supposed to be like them. She _wanted _to be like them. And they got into scary situations like this all the time! And they didn't sit there crying about it! They _did _stuff.

As long as she could remember, Jordan had loved hearing stories. She loved books and movies, especially when her Uncle Daniel read books to her. But the stories she loved best were the ones about SG-1. SG-1 meant Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Daniel, and Uncle Teal'c, before she was born, when they all went to other planets together all the time. Exploring. That's what they called it.

Now her Mom and Dad didn't go as much as her uncles did, because, her Dad told her once, they would rather pick her up from school and come home and play with her than sleep on the hard freezing ground in tents outside on some other planet, which was bad for Daddy's knees and hurt his back. They still went sometimes, usually just Mom. But always they couldn't wait to get home.

She was glad they wanted to come home to be with her of course, but she had never really understood it before, because the stories - when she could convince one of them to tell her a story about SG-1 - were _so _cool! It was hard for her to understand how her Daddy would rather color with her than go to other planets and kill bad guys and save the world and stuff.

But now, she understood. Because she was on a cool spaceship with an alien having a Very Scary Adventure, and all she wanted to do was go home.

She got an idea suddenly and got to her feet. They were bare. She didn't have her ruby slippers with her from last year's Halloween costume. But they were just pretend magic ruby slippers anyway, so if it was _going _to work at all, she figured it had just as good a shot at working with or without the props.

Squinching her eyes shut, she clicked her heels together three times while repeating, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home."

It didn't work. She sighed. She hadn't really expected it to, but you never could tell. Lots of things that most people thought were imaginary or pretend - like aliens - Jordan had known since as long as she could remember were in fact very real. She sat back down and thought hard about all the stories where SG-1 was captured by "baddies." How did they get out?

Well, if not all of them were captured together, it was easy. They just saved whoever needed saving. This time, Jordan just needed saving. She knew they would be looking for her, and she knew they wouldn't stop looking until they found her. The only thing she was worried about was how long it was going to take. Because she wanted to go home… but also, she kind of had to go to the bathroom.

xxxxx

A/N: We are now almost finished with this story. By the time Kate has to go home - which will be very sad - it will be finished. But to prove that we ARE back to writing it now, we wanted to go ahead and give you one last chapter in 2006, along with our most sincere apologies for the inexcusible delay in getting this story done. This is what happens when I let her convince me to start posting something that's nowhere near finished!


	9. Annoying Encumbrances

A/N: I know, I know. It's been a REALLY long time. I have nothing but apologies and, if you're truly curious enough to e-mail me from your private account that I can respond to directly, I will give you an explanation/reason.

In general, I'll just say that this story is now about 85 percent done. All of the Jordan segments have been done for the better part of a year, and the end is completely done. Now I just have to go in and finish filling in the gaps that track SG1's actions.

Thank you all for your patience and continued interest in this story. If it weren't for the fact that I am still, even after all this time, getting responses and requests for updates, I probably would have just given up on this story all together quite some time ago. So thank you all, once again.

Ch 9

Jordan was left alone for what seemed to her like a very long time. After tiring herself out crying and swearing, she started thinking. She believed the alien when he said that even if she did somehow get control of the ship she wouldn't be able to fly it. But she might be able to stop it or something. And her parents always told her if she got lost she should stay in one spot till they found her…

Still, she doubted she'd be able to escape by herself. So what should she do? She thought about the stories she knew about SG-1 again. She should probably try to find out everything she could about the alien and why he had taken her. Besides, maybe if she could get him to be friendly with her he might let her go. He was so scary though…

Well, she determined. She'd just have to be brave, like SG-1. But they were very brave and strong and they'd had so much practice… she was just a little girl. She couldn't be… but all the books and stories she liked best had kids being very brave too. She thought about her favorite - Harry Potter. Jordan was only alone right now, and she had her family looking for her. Harry Potter should have been way more scared than she was. At the beginning of the first book he was really all alone and the only family he had was so mean to him…

Jordan remembered how sad her Uncle Daniel had been when he read that book to her. He tried to hide it but Jordan could tell. She asked him and he told her his parents died when he was very little too. So even though she knew Harry Potter wasn't a real boy, her Uncle Daniel was a real boy who grew up to be a big-time, super-brave hero even though he had once been a scared little kid… Feeling better, Jordan determined to be brave and smart and strong, so when she got rescued she could give them all the information - no,she corrected herself. If you were on an "op" it was called "intel" - about what had happened to her.

The door opened and she scrambled to her feet, but didn't back away. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, she moved towards him. "I'm not gonna run away. You don't have to keep me locked up in here in the dark all the time," she said, crossing her arms.

"It was not my intention to do so, but I had no desire to interact with you when you were upset as you were earlier. Come with me, Miss O'Neill."

Jordan followed him back to the bridge, thinking to herself that the alien must have been watching and listening to her to know she was upset. She was being surveillanced!

xxxxx

"Cat hair?" O'Neill repeated, looking back and forth at the two forensics guys he was listening to.

They both nodded. "We found a few cat hairs in your home, sir, and the milk sample contained traces of cat saliva."

He rubbed the back of his head while he thought. "Okay… so maybe this is an Earth-bound kidnapping after all. But Jordan knows not to talk to strangers… even if they've got kittens or puppies… and she wouldn't have let someone in the house… but somehow somebody must have used a cat as bait."

He hurried out the lab, calling, "Thanks!" over his shoulder as he left. He went to his office and sat down at his desk, turning on his computer and waiting impatiently while it booted up. When it finally did, he went to Mapquest. He usually didn't do much with the computer aside from writing reports - Sam, or Daniel or Teal'c if they were around, usually took over anything that needed to be done on a computer.

But he himself had been forced to become acquainted with Mapquest several months ago, when Jordan had been starting tap dancing lessons and he'd had to take her by himself for the first time. He had mistakenly assumed that she'd know where it was. They'd been on the way out the door before he thought to ask her how to get there, to which she had just shrugged and said, "I dunno."

A crash course in Mapquest later - with Jordan tap-tap-tapping away next to the computer while chanting "Tea for two" with the intermittent "Watch, Daddy!" - and they were on the road with printed off directions, Jack feeling mildly embarrassed that his daughter had been the one to figure out what was wrong with the printer when it came time to print off the map…

Jack sighed and shook his head, trying to clear his mind, then started finding all the animal shelters and pet stores in the area, starting with those closest to their house. The cat that ended up in their house had to come from somewhere… with any luck, it had come from one of those places. After he had his list, he started calling, trying to find out if anybody had reported a cat or kitten missing. There was always the chance that the cat used had been obtained legitimately, but that would be harder to track down. For the first round of calls, he wanted to see if anybody had anything "unusual" to report - particularly anything that could remotely be considered to be alien activity.

xxxxx

Jordan had been watching the alien work for about five minutes, trying to get up the nerve to talk to him. She should ask him some questions. Whenever she asked a lot of questions her daddy always said she was spending too much time with Uncle Danny.

She took a deep breath and began. "Why'd you take me?" Jordan asked.

"Because I needed something that I believe only you can provide," the alien answered cryptically.

"What?" Jordan persisted.

"You will see."

"What's your name?"

"Jormungand."

"What?"

"Jormungand. I do not like to repeat myself, Miss O'Neill."

"Sorry. It's kind of a hard name is all. Are you going to… hurt me?" She swallowed hard, trying to look like she wasn't scared.

"That remains to be seen. The more cooperative you are, the more pleasant our trip will be."

"Where are we going?"

"We are going to the planet I have come to think of as 'home,' with a very important stop along the way."

"How long will it take?"

"Many of your days."

"How many?"

"Your questions are wearying me. I must insist that you return to your quarters."

"That little room with nothing in it?"

"Yes."

"It's cold in there. And… I need to go to the bathroom. And… you know I get hungry and thirsty, right?"

"I have taken into account your body's various daily requirements."

"You brought snacks?" Jordan asked, wanting to make sure she understood.

"If I understand your vernacular correctly, yes. Do you require nourishment now?"

"No… well, I'm kind of thirsty. But mostly I have to go to the bathroom."

"I will designate a small room that can easily be opened to the vacuum of space for that purpose."

"You shoulda beamed up a toilet," she remarked. "If you don't go to the bathroom too, I mean." She looked at his naked body, trying to figure out where and how such a creature might go to the bathroom. The answer was not obvious.

Kind of like Thor - only her Mom had made her promise never to ask Thor about that. She told her why he didn't need to use a toilet, but she didn't really understand. Especially after Uncle Teal'c read her a book called "Everybody Poops." She pointed out that it really should have been called "Everybody poops except for Thor." Uncle Teal'c had laughed at that - and then later, when she told the story to her parents, _they _had both laughed _forever _because she made Teal'c laugh, and that was a really, really hard thing to do.

The alien was looking very irritated because she was staring at him with her head tilted and her nose wrinkled, which she only did when she was pondering something very carefully. She looked up at his face and swallowed hard, hoping she wasn't about to get sent back to her room. "Sorry," she apologized.

xxxxx

Jacob Carter arrived at the SGC to find the facility very close to panicking in their so far futile efforts to find out what had happened to his granddaughter. When he came through the gate, his daughter waved to him from the control room but didn't come running down to the gate room to greet him - and Teal'c, Daniel, and Jack were nowhere to be found.

He dumped the zay'tarc detector with the nearest SF and hurried up to the control room. "Sam? Anything new to report?" he asked.

She glanced away from the monitor she was working on and shook her head. "Thanks for coming so fast, Dad."

"Of course. What are you…"

"Checking the gate's code for anomalies that could be Jordan," she explained. "Teal'c and Daniel will help you with the zay'tarc detector. They're in Iso 1 and 2."

"Okay," Jacob said carefully, glancing at Walter and trying to silently ask the technician how long his daughter had been sitting in that chair with that way-too-focused-to-be-normal-or-healthy look in her eyes. Walter seemed too scared to answer. "Where's Jack?" Jacob asked instead, clearing his throat.

"Working," Sam answered tersely. "Dad, please, the zay'tarc detector. Teal'c's waiting for it."

Jacob nodded and just did as he was told, going straight to the isolation rooms. Daniel greeted him more welcomingly than Sam had, hugging him and clapping him on the shoulder. "Jacob, thank God you're here. We've got three ambassadors left that we're just not sure about - whether they're hiding something because they know something or if they're just pissed off at the way they're being treated."

"I do not believe any of these men know the whereabouts of Jordan," Teal'c stated.

"Neither do I, but we have to be 100," Daniel agreed with a heavy sigh.

"Have you guys seen Jack lately?" Jacob asked.

"No, why?" Daniel asked.

"Because Sam is… going kind of nuts in the control room, and he's the only one I've ever seen that can get her to stop when she gets like that."

"True," Daniel agreed. He turned to Teal'c. "I could go check on Jack and update him while you guys do this."

"That would be a wise idea," Teal'c agreed.

Daniel quickly found Jack in his office. He was standing, behind his desk, on the phone. He waved Daniel in but didn't turn his attention from the phone. "So you did have a kitten that disappeared for a while, but then it just showed back up in its cage with the others?"

"What the…" Daniel muttered to himself, having no idea where anything about a kitten was coming from.

"Okay. Ma'am, this is very important. I need you to quarantine that animal until I get there… look, I really don't care about your adoption procedures, okay, I'm a USAF General and I'm telling you that I need that animal kept secure until I can pick it up… look, don't make me come armed! I'm getting that kitten one way or another and…"

"_Jack," _Daniel interrupted loudly. "How the hell is threatening to kidnap a kitten at gunpoint going to help us find Jordan?"

Jack shot him a dangerous glare. Daniel didn't show any outward signs that he was intimidated by The Glare, just held out his hand for the phone. Jack reluctantly turned it over. "Hello, who am I speaking to, please? Sharon, my name is Daniel Jackson. The man you were just speaking to is General Jack O'Neill, and the animal in question may be evidence in the abduction of his five year old daughter. We are going to need that cat to be… yes. Yes, thank you. Someone will be along directly to…" Jack was snapping his fingers and gesturing at himself, so Daniel added, "General O'Neill will be there shortly. Please do not release the animal to anyone other than him. Thank you." He handed the phone back to Jack to hang up.

"Thanks," Jack said through clenched teeth. "I have to go get that cat."

"Okay, Jack… what does a cat have to do with anything?"

"I don't know yet. It's how they got Jordan though. There was cat hair and saliva in the spilled milk. She must have let it inside… what are you doing in here anyway, did you finish the interrogations?"

"Jacob's here. He and Teal'c are setting up the zay'tarc detector for round 2."

"Good."

"Um, Jack," Daniel said carefully as Jack grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

"What, Daniel?"

"Aren't you going to tell Sam where you're going?"

"Yeah, go tell her. Then go back and help Teal'c and Jacob."

"No, I mean…"

"_What, Daniel?" _Jack snapped, more impatient than ever before. "This is the first possible big break we've had, I don't have time to stand around talking to you right now!"

"But Sam's…"

"Working, right?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Which is what you should be doing too. What do you want me to do, interrupt her while she's in the middle of something important?" Without waiting for an answer to the rhetorical question, Jack nudged Daniel out of the way with a rough shoulder-shove and headed towards the elevator.

Daniel watched him go, now completely confused - and more than a little worried. "Um, it's what you do," he said to the empty room, since Jack was already gone.

He went to the control room himself, sitting down next to Sam with a heavy sigh. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Just checking to see if you needed anything."

"I'm fine. Are you done interviewing?"

"No…"

"Then what are you doing in here?"

"Um, Jack left. With the forensics team. To go check a lead."

"What lead?" She seemed to barely be paying him any attention, as she was still typing commands into the computer at breakneck speed while they talked, but he knew she was listening enough.

"They found cat hair and saliva in your house, and I guess he found a pet store or shelter where a kitten disappeared for a while and showed up again. He went to get it."

That at least got her attention to the point where she stopped typing and turned to look at him. "A cat?"

"Yeah… I thought it was weird too. Uh, Sam, don't you think maybe you should…" She gave him a warning look. "Never mind." He wasn't going to try to get her to take a break when she was like this. Jacob had been right - the only person who'd ever been able to do that was Jack. "I'll uh, let you know if we find out anything else."

xxxxx

"Are you going to hurt me?"

"If you make it necessary for me to do so, I will."

"Jormungand?"

"Yes, Miss O'Neill?"

"Do I have to stay in this room all the time? It's so boring."

"When we arrive at our first stop, you will have plenty to do."

"Like what?"

"It would be a useless waste of time to attempt to explain it to you now. You will see soon enough."

She sighed deeply. She was not used to having her questions dismissed unanswered. "Can you at least leave the light on? Please?"

He tipped his head as he opened the door to her room, nudged her inside, and locked her in. She waited a few seconds, and the light stayed on. She smiled. "Thank you!" she yelled, knowing that he was still watching her while she was in here.

Hey… if he was watching her… he could hear her too probably. That gave her an idea. She could keep herself entertained… and maybe irritate him into giving her a few more privileges at the same time. She vaguely remembered her mom once saying that her dad was really good at irritating aliens. She wished she knew how he did it… but she could always, what was the word? Oh yeah, _improvise. _

xxxxx

Jack entered the animal shelter and tried to remember Daniel's warning to act "not deranged." He hated to admit it, but when it came to dealing with people, Daniel _was _the expert. He flashed his badge around and quietly but firmly told them what he needed. Thirty minutes later, he was leaving with a surveillance tape in one hand and a little grey kitten in the other. As soon as he got into the car, he took a little hand-held vacuum cleaner the forensic guys had given him, and ran it all over the kitten, in case there was evidence in its fur that hadn't yet been destroyed.

The kitten didn't like it, to say the least. It freaked out and latched onto his forearm. He frowned, tried once to pull it off, and decided just to wait until the kitten relaxed on its own. When he started the truck and the engine scared the cat into latching on tighter, he figured that might be a while.

Sure enough, the kitten remained stuck to his arm during most of the examination by the forensics team. When the exam was over, and Jack was told that the results would take a while, he couldn't handle hanging out with forensics lab geeks any longer and went to go see how Teal'c and Daniel were coming along with the interrogations.

xxxxx

"This is the song that doesn't end. Yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people staaaaaarted singing it not knowing what it waaaaaaaaaas, and now continue singing it FOREVER just because this is the song that doesn't ennnnnnnnnnnnnnnd…"

Jordan had been through every single verse of "99 bottles of beer on the wall," and several choruses of "It's a small world after all" before switching to her current mantra. She had started off singing loudly while she pounced and danced about the room, but was getting tired and no longer quite as boisterous. Still, she was determined. Besides, she didn't have anything else to do anyway…

Getting annoyed with her own song choice, she switched mid-word from "The song that doesn't end" to a short Russian song her daddy had taught her, to be funny. She just learnt the words by sound, not by meaning, but he told her it was a song he learnt a long time ago when he was a Lieutenant and he spent way too much time in bars in other countries.

She still remembered the shocked look on Uncle Danny's face the first time she'd belted it out in front of him. Because he knew what all the words meant, because _he_ spoke about a million languages. Jordan didn't know what the song really said, but she was pretty sure that if she knew the words in English, she would definitely _not _be allowed to sing it.

Thinking about that funny joke they had pulled on her Uncle Daniel - and on Mommy too, when she made him tell her what it meant - made Jordan remember what she and Uncle Danny had done to get back at her dad. He'd taught her a German drinking song called Einstürzende Neubeuten and then refused to tell anybody what it meant apart from that it was "vaguely appropriate given their line of work."

For about a week her parents had made her sing it over and over one part at a time, trying to write down the words so they could look it up, but it was too hard. Finally one day, she had been in her Dad's office with her mom while they waited for him to finish getting a checkup with Aunt Janet when the red phone rang. Jordan scrambled for it quickly, because she loved talking to the President. Her mom had quickly taken the phone away from her and been halfway through apologizing profusely to the president when she suddenly got her idea-face and said, "Mr. President, don't you speak German, sir?"

So it was that at four and a half years old, Jordan O'Neill had found herself singing "Einstürzende Neubeuten" to the President of the United States, who had enjoyed the song a whole lot. He laughed and told her that she did a beautiful job, then asked to talk to her Mommy again.

When Mommy got off the phone, which had taken _forever, _she made her promise not to tell anybody, especially Uncle Daniel, about it. Then he and Uncle Teal'c came over for dinner and while they were having cake her mom had said, "So, Daniel, what on earth could your goddaughter have done to you to inspire you to teach her a song called, 'I am the last beast in the sky?'"

Uncle Danny had spit coffee all over Uncle Teal'c, which made Jordan laugh so hard she nearly wet her pants. She had been just a little kid back then though, so that was okay. She smiled as the memories ran through her head while she sang, getting a second burst of energy and doing the song a second time, once again bouncing around the room, doing her own unique brand of interpretive dancing to the song.

She still didn't know exactly what it meant. Uncle Daniel told her it was a metaphor for the sun or something, and he'd picked that song because once her mom figured out what it meant she'd appreciate the irony.

Jordan froze mid-chorus. _Appreciate the irony. _That's what Jormungand had said about using the kitten to trick her and kidnap her. She didn't grasp the concept of irony entirely, but she thought it must be important for Jormungand to go through the trouble of stealing a kitten. And guessing from what had happened with the German drinking song, she thought maybe it was kind of like sarcasm - which she was only just starting to understand, with the help of her father and The Simpsons. Maybe she could get Jormungand to explain how it was ironic… and maybe that would help her understand why he'd taken her in the first place!

Resolved to try that next time he was around, she kept singing. She couldn't remember where she stopped in the song so she just started from the beginning again.

xxxxx


	10. Putting the Pieces Together

Ch 10

"Hey Dad. Figure out who the rat is yet?" Jack asked as he entered the observation room.

Jacob and Daniel were in there, while Teal'c was in the interrogation room itself, still "interviewing" the last remaining ambassador.

"Any rats we find would probably be able to eat that cat for breakfast," Jacob said. Jack cradled the kitten to his chest as though scared if it got offended it wouldn't provide any useful information for them. "How are you, Jack?"

"Peachy," he said in his driest tone. "What did you guys learn?"

Daniel sighed. "This is a dead end, Jack. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to hear that… but it's true."

Jacob nodded. "The zay'tarc detector confirms what Teal'c and Daniel suspected. None of these men know anything about what happened to Jordan. What about you?"

Jack held up the kitten as proof. "Waiting on test results but it looks good. They ran one of those yellow things Sam always uses and it clicked."

"The kitten is radioactive?" Daniel asked, translating Jack's description of the test.

"Yeah. Low levels. They're going to determine what kind of radiation, confirm that the cat's been out in space recently…"

"Hello," Jacob said suddenly, going closer to the two-way mirror and looking down. The zay'tarc detector was flashing red.

"Well… maybe not so innocent," Jack said.

"I better get in there," Daniel said quickly, hurrying down to help Teal's - or more accurately, help keep the guy now being questioned _very _firmly by Teal'c keep from having a heart attack. It wouldn't do any good if the guy got scared to death before telling them what he knew, after all.

Jack was about to join them when the cat suddenly made a truly terrifying sound and vomited all over his arm and shirt. He looked down at himself and frowned. "Oh crap… wait! The geeks can analyze this stuff, right?" he asked Jacob excitedly.

"Uh, I guess…"

"Way to go, furball!" He hurried away with the kitten.

"Wow. I've never seen anybody that happy to be puked on before. Especially by a cat," Jacob said to himself. "Cat puke is especially nasty," he added, for Selmak's benefit.

xxxxx

When the door opened this time, Jordan kept on singing, pretending she didn't see him. Jormungand didn't buy it though. He flashed the lights until she stopped singing, and then demanded loudly, "_WHAT _do you call that insufferable noise you are making?"

"Singing," she smirked, glad that her plan had worked and he had finally come back to get her to stop.

"Well do not do it anymore."

"There's nothing else to do in here," she whined.

"You switched your speech while you were… _singing_. Do you know more than one language? My research shows that most children your age do not."

"Lots do," she shrugged. "Uncle Danny said so. He says you learn best when you're little like me. Daddy just said not to brainwash me into a geek and it was okay. Anyway I don't really know what the words mean I just learnt the songs for fun."

"I see. That is impressive. Perhaps I have underestimated your current intelligence level. Very well, Jordan. Come with me."

She followed him down a corridor to another room, bigger than the one she had been in but still smaller than the bridge. There weren't any outside views. He went over to one of the walls and did something with one of his black plastic half-egg-looking controls and a panel slid open. He pulled out a bunch of pieces of something and set them on the floor. "This is a puzzle. You may attempt to assemble it."

"Why do you want me to do that?"

"To see if you can."

"Why?"

"Did you not ask for something to do?" She nodded. "Then perhaps you are not in a position to ask 'why' at the moment, Miss O'Neill."

"Can I ask something else then? If you answer me I'll do the puzzle," she offered hopefully.

"Very well," he agreed.

"Whenever you used the kitten to take me you said it was because of irony. Why… I mean, _how, _is it irony to use a kitty cat to take me?"

"It will remind an old friend of who I am and why I have taken you."

She could tell from the way he said "friend" that he wasn't really talking about a "friend" at all. "Who?"

"Someone we are both familiar with."

Maybe he was trying to trick her into tattling. So she probably shouldn't say anything having to do with the Big Secret - the SGC - …or anybody she knew because of it. Her Mom and Dad would definitely _not _want her to accidentally get somebody in trouble like she was in right now.

"Who?" she asked.

"Your guardian angel, it would seem."

She smiled proudly. "I got _lots _of those. You're gonna hafta be more speciftic."

"This one is approximately your size and thinks holding the title of 'Supreme Commander' gives him the right to do whatever he wants."

She knew he was talking about Thor, but she put on the face she used when she was trying to get out of trouble for something _big _like messing up Mommy's home computer trying to get online to play World of Warcraft with Teal'c, and asked innocently, "Who?"

"Very well. Pretend not to know who I am speaking about if you like, for now. It will make no difference in the long run. Now. Put that together, if you can." He pointed to the pile of block-like pieces on the floor and left, shutting the door behind him.

She frowned at the closed door, wondering what Thor had to do with Jormungand and a kitten. Although everything she had seen on the ship _did _sort of look like an old, junky, evil and scary version of Thor's ship.

Maybe Jormungand would tell her more if she finished the puzzle. She sat down on the floor and crossed her legs, spreading out all the pieces curiously. They felt like they were made out of some kind of rock, but they were all shapes with straight edges. Smooth and grey, she picked up one of the pieces, which was just the right size for the palm of her hand. She studied it curiously, turning it all around.

She stared at the pieces collectively for several minutes, trying to see in her mind what sort of big shape they could make all put together, where all the pieces would be able to go together and hold without falling apart. It wasn't like a jigsaw puzzle where they snapped in place. It was more like the time she accidentally broke one of Uncle Danny's paperweights and she had tried to put it back together again. At least this time she could put it together without Daddy and Uncle Danny arguing about why Daddy had let her play catch with it in the first place…

xxxxx

"Okay, people," General Hammond said loudly, addressing the entire board room. It had never been this crowded before. "Reports. Jack you first."

"The forensics team confirmed that the kitten was in our house and was also in space. The milk in its stomach matched the milk in our house, there was one of Jordan's hairs in with the rest of the hairball it spit up all over me, and there was radiation… anyway. It was definitely used, somehow."

"Why would an alien use a kitten to get to Jordan, then take the trouble to send the kitten back to Earth?" Daniel asked.

"I was wondering the same thing, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c concurred.

"Because the alien wants something from her," Sam said quietly. All the noise in the room stopped. People had been trying to give her lots of space all day.

"What?" Jacob asked.

"Whoever took her did it for a very specific reason, Dad. That means they need some level of cooperation from her. And there wouldn't be a chance of that if she saw whoever took her mistreat an animal. Particularly one that she knew was used as a trap for herself. Sending the kitten back to earth safely would be her first demand."

"She's right," Jack agreed, reaching over to pet the kitten, which was currently perched on Teal'c's knee.

"Very well," Hammond said. "Jack, if you plan to keep that around now that we're done testing it, I suggest you designate a cat-sitter."

"The cat's staying, sir. He's going to Jo when we find her," Jack said firmly.

Hammond nodded. "I'll take care of him in the meantime, sir," Janet offered immediately. Jack nodded. Teal'c passed over the kitten.

"Good. Next?" Hammond asked.

"We have a suspect in custody," Teal'c said.

"A _suspect,_" Daniel stressed.

"What's the distinction?"

Jacob cleared his throat. "We believe he may have become so stressed by the interrogation itself that his emotional status began reading as a false positive on the zay'tarc detector."

"We should send a team to the planet he's from anyway to start checking it out," Sam said.

Hammond nodded. "I agree."

"SG-12 would like to volunteer, sir," their leader said.

"Thank you," Jack said.

"I'm working through the gate's code as fast as I can. I really should get back to it," Sam said, remembering belatedly to add, "Sir" to General Hammond.

"Colonel, I'm not sure you need to spend your time doing that, since we've narrowed the list of suspect ambassadors down to one," Hammond said gently.

"I'm going over his sections of the tape and the gate code line by line at the moment, sir."

"Speaking of tapes," Jack said, trying to get the attention off Sam before Hammond could try to get her to halt her work until they could finish interrogating the ambassador and checking out his planet in person. He hadn't seen Sam for several hours and he was worried, based on seeing her now up close, that she might pass out again if she got too upset at Hammond and started in on him. He could tell she hadn't eaten all day and was running solely on coffee fumes and desperation, and didn't want anybody else - particularly Janet - to notice. "We watched the one from the animal shelter."

"What did you find?"

"Just before the kitten disappeared, the camera goes to static. But there's a quick flash of light just before that happens."

"Asgard technology?" Sam asked.

"Looks like it," Jack confirmed.

"We can't be sure, because it's a grainy black and white tape, and it's only there for a fraction of a second before the tape cuts out. The same thing happens again before they found the kitten back in its cage," Daniel said.

"The Asgard love Jordan," Janet said, confused. "None of them would…"

"Someone with stolen or similar technology, then, perhaps," Jacob suggested.

"That should be a fairly short list," Daniel said.

"I'm calling Thor again," Jack said firmly, getting up and heading out the door.

"I'll help you dial," Sam said.

"Dismissed, people," Hammond said, after everyone looked at him uncertainly from the edge of their seats. "Just… remember, no mistakes on this one. Please."

Everyone dispersed, eager to get back to work.

xxxxx

The tip of her tongue poking out the side of her mouth and her brow furrowed in an intense concentration well beyond her five years, Jordan leaned over carefully and placed the final, pointy piece on the top of the puzzle. She had figured out a long time ago, based on the fact that most of the pieces had one side that was slanted at an angle, that it was a pyramid. That had reminded her of her Uncle Daniel again, which made her happy and eager to finish it quickly.

She stood up and assessed her finished work. The pyramid came up just past her knees while she was standing. "Uncle Danny would love to have this," she said to herself with a small smile. Not sure if Jormungand was still watching her on his monitors, she looked around and yelled up at the ceiling, "I'm DONE!"

He entered the room shortly and surveyed the pyramid, looking from it to her. "So? Did I do a good job?"

"Forty-two minutes. Very impressive," he agreed. "That is a very difficult test of your cognitive spatial comprehension abilities. I did not expect you to be able to do that on your own. Not yet, anyway. Let alone so quickly. Has your intelligence been tested before?"

She shrugged. "I guess. I had to take a bunch of tests when I went to school cuz I skipped some grades and stuff."

"Were any of those tests like this one?"

"Not really. I have these things called Tangoes. I guess they're kind of like that, but not really. They're flat and you have to match the shape on the card with the Tango shapes."

"I see."

"I'm hungry," she told him flatly, since he should be pretty happy with her right now for doing the puzzle. "Didn't you bring anything to eat besides those yucky shapes?" she asked hopefully. His food was really gross. But he did have lots of water for her, at least.

"Your meal contains all of the vitamins and minerals that a child of your age and physiology requires," he said, as he held out his palm and a few of the shapes materialized in his hand. He gave them to her, along with some water.

She looked at the shapes in her hand - a yellow circle, a red square, and a blue rectangle. She sighed. "You don't even have jell-o?"

xxxxx


	11. Multiplying Problems

Note: Glad to see people still want to hear how this story ends. It certainly helps encourage me to fill in the remaining blanks and get it posted as quickly as I can. Thank you all.

Ch 11

Jack and Sam finished sending a second message to Thor, and Walter slid over at his console automatically, before Sam could boot him out of his seat again. "Good catch on finding the cat," Sam said quietly as she sat back down and got back to work.

"Thanks. How's it going here?"

"It's not," she responded tersely. Jack knew she was frustrated with the situation more than anything else, but wanted to try to be sure she wasn't blaming herself for her lack of progress finding any clues that might or might not have been buried within the millions of lines of code from the gate.

"Um, Sam? I was thinking… if the cat was in space, wasn't Jordan probably taken straight from the house, not through the gate?"

"Probably," Sam agreed. "But there's a team working on all the stuff the cat can tell you already. So as long as we still have a suspect in custody who went through the gate, I'm going to keep sorting through all of this. The longer she's gone…" she took a deep breath and tried to keep it together. "… I just think every second might count here."

"You won't eat something, then? I could bring it here so you wouldn't have to…"

"I'm not hungry."

"Okay." He squeezed her shoulder briefly and was alarmed at how tense the muscles were. He rubbed harder with his thumb, but she shot him a look that plainly said, 'back off.' "Um, I'm going to go see if there's anything I can do with Teal'c and your dad." He watched the back of her head till she nodded, then nodded himself and turned to go.

Daniel was lurking near the base of the staircase, with that, "I'm about to butt in and Jack's not going to like it" look on his face.

Jack sighed, glanced back at Sam, and waved Daniel to follow him.

Daniel waited until they got into Jack's office before starting. "I'm worried about Sam," he said. Actually, he was worried about both of them. The only times he'd seen them talk to each other since arriving at the base were to exchange brief updates on their separate progress. It wasn't like them under any circumstances, and considering the horrible circumstances they were facing now, he would have expected them to be… presenting a more united front… or at least doing a halfway decent job at comforting each other, or something.

"She's fine, Daniel. You know Carter, she could stay up four days straight and still pass the Mensa test with flying colors..."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Jack. I just think she's working way too hard to keep her mind off of Jordan. She's hardly left that chair in the control room since you guys got here."

"She likes to work. She's got to keep her mind busy. That's hard to do with a mind like hers. And if you think any amount of work is going to get either of our minds off the fact that our daughter is missing for even a second you're nuts."

"Yes, I understand that, Jack. But there's a limit to how much work is healthy for anybody. Even Sam. You know that."

"Quit sounding like the doc. What do you expect me to do about it? Order her out of the control room?"

"You used to do it all the time... before..." Jack gave him a warning look. "All I'm saying is, if you're truly trying to keep your professional relationship the same, which I know has always been really important to both of you, despite the fact that nobody else cares about that anymore one way or the other… but if that's what you're both set on doing, I just mean you can't start cutting her slack because you're afraid she'll get mad at you."

"I'm not afraid, Daniel," he said firmly. "I'm just... respecting her method of dealing with stress."

"Well, if she doesn't start calming down on her own, sooner or later Janet's going to order her into the infirmary, and then nobody will be happy. Think about it, Jack. You would never have left her alone this long before you were married..."

"All right, all right, I get your point. I'll... figure something out. It's just… it's hard. Jordan's out there somewhere going through god knows what… at the very least she's probably scared to death… and we're stuck here trying to figure out what happened based on hair balls and…" He was starting to get carried away himself, and he had been trying to keep a firm grip on his emotions, afraid he'd be as utterly useless as he felt if he didn't. "It's just hard."

Daniel nodded sympathetically.

"I'll… figure something out, Daniel. Go help Teal'c. Please."

"Okay." Daniel started to go, then stopped in the door. "Jack if you want to talk… well, I mean, I think you should talk to Sam. But if you don't want to or can't or… whatever… but if you still want to talk… I'll be here."

Both of them knew he wouldn't be taking Daniel up on the offer. But it was still a little bit reassuring to hear. "Thanks, Daniel."

Once alone in his office, Jack looked around quickly. He wasn't really sure what he was looking for, but he was doing everything quickly and urgently for the time being anyway. His eyes settled on the picture on his desk, by the red phone. Daniel had taken it, after dinner on Jack's last birthday.

He was sitting in his chair at the dining room table, with Jordan perched on one knee - because she wanted to be sure she got first dibs at licking the icing off the candles, Jack remembered with a fond smile. Jordan loved cake even more than he did, if that was possible. Sam was leaning over the back of the chair, arms draped over his shoulders from behind.

Their heads were very close together. It had started off as a posed picture, but after he clicked the first one, Jack had tickled Jordan, and she had leaned back in his arm, laughing. Daniel had continued to snap pictures, and the one that Jack had liked best was this one, because it looked so real and happy. They were all laughing, but Jordan was giggling uncontrollably, leaning back against one of his arms, looking up at both of them, pointing, and Sam was just about to grab her finger.

He smiled every time he saw that picture, but this time, he had to take a deep breath and several minutes of blinking back the tears that were clouding his eyes. "You damn well better be okay, Jo, or it's going to kill all of us."

Finally, he shook his head and picked up the phone to call the forensics lab for an update.

xxxxx

Jordan woke up and wondered if she'd just taken a nap, or slept for a whole night. She had no way of knowing, since her Tinkerbell watch was in the back of her Dad's truck and not on her wrist when she had been taken.

It wasn't long before Jormungand came to get her. "Are you rested?"

"Yes."

"Good. We are about to enter orbit around the planet which is to be our first stop."

"Do I get to go down there too?" she asked hopefully. She was used to spending plenty of time outside, and was getting more than a little sick of the smooth, sparse interior of the ship for more reasons than the simple fact that she was being held captive.

"Yes. However, our stop will be very brief."

"I have to go to the bathroom first," Jordan said suddenly.

"Very well. You know the way. You may go. Come to the bridge when you are finished."

She nodded, wondering why he was being so nice to her now - relatively speaking, of course. She took herself to the "bathroom." She did have to go, but it was mainly an excuse to think some.

Her parents were looking for her. She knew that without a doubt. They probably had a whole bunch of people helping them too, besides the SGC. Grandpa Jacob would be trying to help, she knew for sure. And Thor too, if he wasn't too busy being the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet. Maybe she could leave them some sort of sign that she had been there, in case they went to the same planet looking for her later.

She didn't really have very much to leave behind though. She was only wearing her nightgown, and she was afraid if she tore it to leave a piece behind, Jormungand would notice and punish her again. Probably make her stay in her room with the lights off forever. Or worse.

Maybe if there was something on the planet she could use - sand or branches or leaves, or something. But she doubted Jormungand would let her out of his sight for long, if at all. And what if they got down there and there wasn't anything she could use to leave them a sign with? She thought about maybe trying to pull out some of her hair, but besides hurting, it would probably just blow away and they'd never find it. Even if it didn't blow away, her hair was very light. They probably wouldn't see it.

She wrinkled her nose as she thought. She remembered that she still had the whole blue rectangle left, and part of the circle from her "meal" before. They were still in her room if Jormungand hadn't gotten rid of them. She hurried back to the room and quickly found the pieces. Scrunching her nose up at the bitter taste, she quickly nibbled away at two sides of the rectangle. She made it into a T and held up the crescent bit of the circle that was left next to it so that it looked like a "J."

Her parents would see that and know it was her - the blocks were very bright. As long as she could leave them somewhere her parents would find them, but Jormungand would not. That was going to be the hard part. Also hiding them until they got down there. She tucked the pieces into the waistband of her underpants - it was the only place she could think of to hide them.

Then she hurried to the bridge, where Jormungand was ready with a really old zat gun that looked rusty and another black plastic stone thingy. "You went back to your room. You were told to come to the bridge directly."

"Sorry. I forgot."

She blinked at him innocently until Jormungand either bought it or just didn't care. He nudged her over to the area in front of the "window" and used the stone-thing to beam them down to the planet.

When they rematerialized, they were standing in front of a Stargate. She was glad about that - it would make it way easier for her parents to get there when they came looking for her. Plus they would definitely go to the Stargate. It was the perfect place to leave her breadcrumbs - just like Hansel and Gretel. Only she wished she wasn't by herself. Having a Hansel around would be way less scary.

She thought about her best friend Alex, just for a second, then felt bad for wishing that somebody else be going through this very scary thing with her just so she wouldn't be lonely. "We must walk," Jormungand said gruffly, prodding her shoulder with the zat to get her moving.

She walked briskly at first, glad to be able to stretch her legs and breathe fresh air. The planet was lots of trees. It reminded her of her favorite part of 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,' where they raced around the Ewok planet on speeders. The ground wasn't soft enough to leave good footprints, but she knew her Uncle Teal'c was the best at following tracks in the universe - _everybody _said so.

So she shuffled her feet along the ground whenever they were walking through leaves and stuff, trying not to let Jormungand figure out what she was doing. She even bent some sticks and branches the direction they were going when she could.

She soon started to tire on the walk, however, and her feet were starting to hurt and get scratched from walking through the forest barefoot. She stubbed her toe once because she was shuffling her feet too much and hit a hidden rock. "How much farther?" she asked.

"Not far."

Two minutes later she was getting very grumpy. Why couldn't he have beamed them down closer to where they were going? Still… it was good that he had taken them to the Stargate first. "Are we there yet?"

"No."

She waited another minute, then: "How much longer?" He didn't bother answering this time, so she quickly added, "How about now?"

"Perhaps we would move faster if I rendered you unconscious with this weapon and dragged you the rest of the way."

She quieted. "Uh, no. I don't think that would be faster."

"Then I suggest you stop repeating questions that you already know the answer to."

"I don't know the answer! I asked how far and you just said not far - that doesn't tell me _how _far…"

He pointed the zat at her and unlocked it.

She swallowed hard, her eyes wide, zipped her lips, and threw away the key. They continued walking.

xxxxx

Jack nudged Sam's shoulder with a coffee mug. Startled, she looked at it and then up at him with a grateful, quick smile. "Thanks. I needed a refill and the filter in the pot over there disintegrated after the last one." She took a sip from the cup and coughed. "What is that - _water?_"

"Yeah. I figured it was better than letting the doc stick you with an IV to keep you hydrated. Come with me."

"I'm almost to a stopping point here…"

"You're at a stopping point, _Colonel. _Come on." He offered her a hand up. "It'll only take a few minutes," he promised, as a quasi-apology for pulling rank.

She followed the order, getting to her feet quickly. Way too quickly. She got dizzy and threw up, nearly falling down in the process. She stopped herself by latching onto the nearest thing - her husband.

Jack stood perfectly still, then looked down at his shirt slowly. For the second time in two days, he had been thrown up on. At least this time it was by someone he loved.

"Sorry," Sam apologized, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

"I haven't had this much puke on me since Jordan was a baby," he said. "Come on, let's go get cleaned up. Then we're going to see how the kitten and the doc are getting along."

"What - no, she'll keep me there forever, Jack, I'm fine," Sam insisted.

"Sam," Jack said evenly, lowering his voice and leaning in closer, noticing that Walter had that eavesdroppy look about him. "Could we possibly continue this conversation when we're not covered in vomit?"

She nodded apologetically. "You're right. I really am sorry about that."

"Ah, relax. It's not like you could help it… although maybe drinking three times as much coffee as Daniel and the doc combined, on an empty stomach, wasn't one of your more brilliant ideas."

She nodded, grabbing his arm for support as she tried to start walking. "Wow. We better get to the locker room _fast._" He grabbed her elbow and wrapped an arm around her and they hurried it up.

xxxxx

They eventually came to a small rectangular building with some columns outside that Uncle Daniel would really have liked. They had writing on them, kind of like a barcode. Jormungand grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand firmly against a spot on one of the walls. The wall changed when he did it - it… _opened. _A big circular hole opened up on it.

"What's that?" Jordan asked nervously. If there was one rule she knew _never _to disobey, it was not to touch _anything _alien that an adult hadn't given her permission to touch.

"That is the ticket to both our salvations, Miss O'Neill."

xxxxx

After getting cleaned up in the locker room - for the second time, for Jack - both Jack and Sam entered the infirmary, Sam feeling much better already and trying to figure out how to get through with all this as quickly as possible.

"Hey, you two," Janet greeted, getting up from her desk and approaching them with the kitten in her arms. "Any news… Sam, you look terrible. Sit down." She passed the kitten to a passing nurse and switched over to doctor mode instantly, and was already pressing a hand to Sam's forehead and shining a penlight in her eyes by the time Sam had reluctantly got onto the nearest gurney.

"I'm fine, Jan, I just had too much coffee," Sam insisted.

"All right. Well, I'm going to do some bloodwork, just in case your diagnosis is wrong. And while you're here, I want you to rest, drink some water if you can, and if you feel up to it, get something bland in your stomach. I'll have someone bring you a tray. Both of you. I'm guessing you haven't eaten either, have you, General?"

Jack shrugged and sat down on the side of the bed. Neither he nor Sam said anything else while Janet took enough blood to run her tests. She left them alone to go put a rush on the tests. Jack scratched the back of his neck as he tried to figure out how to do this. There were so many potential problems here. Normally at work there was absolutely no problem. When the occasion called for it, he gave orders and she followed them. And when she knew something sciencey that nobody else did, she was basically in charge - she told them what she wanted to do and she or General Hammond gave her the okay… just like it had always been. Now though, it was personal. On a whole new level. And he was worried that if he pulled rank too much, the ramifications at home would be bad. Catastrophic if… if anything happened to Jordan.

"Jack. What's wrong?"

"I'm just worried about Jordan. And you."

"I'm fine. Well, I will be when we have something to go on. Speaking of which, what did you want me to look at, anyway?"

"The geek squad that examined the kitten confirmed that it was in our solar system briefly. Something about the trace radiation. So…"

"…the Asgard are monitoring all hyperspace activity in our solar system and we haven't detected any ships…"

"Which is why I was coming to ask you how a ship could have snuck in."

"It would take years and years, at a bare minimum, to get here without using hyperspace travel. Unless somebody knew the point at which the Asgard began monitoring hyperspace activity and exited just outside the range, then finished traveling here at just under light speed… but even that would take a very long time."

"How long?"

"I need to do a few calculations to be sure but… probably about five years or so."

"Jordan's five," Jack said quietly.

"And a half… you think whoever took her has been planning this since she was _born?_"

Jack shrugged. "They planned everything else pretty carefully, I wouldn't put it past them."

xxxxx

"Look inside the device."

Jordan crossed her arms firmly. "No."

"Must I shoot you?"

"You can't look in it yourself or you wouldn't have brought me. So you won't hurt me, cuz I won't help you if you do," she said. She had been thinking it for a while, but this outing confirmed her suspicion.

"I can zat you once, causing you immense pain, and wait until you have recovered sufficiently before doing it again and again until you finally agree. Do you not wish to go home?"

"Yes!"

"Then I suggest you do as I ask."

She stuck out her chin defiantly as she tried to tell if he was serious or not. He seemed serious. And she _did _want to go home, more than anything. So far he had not really hurt her, only scared her, because she had been cooperating…

"Is it going to hurt me?" she asked.

"No."

She didn't really believe him but she didn't think she had much of a choice. She stood up on her tiptoes and tried to peer into the hole in the wall, but she was too short. "I can't reach it," she said, looking up at him.

He twisted the back of her nightgown in his free hand, lifting her up to the proper level. He was way stronger than he looked. That wasn't exactly comforting. He pressed her into the wall and said, "Look."

She grabbed the sides of the thing and peered inside. She saw a bunch of lights bouncing around for a few moments, and then nothing, only black.

xxxxx


	12. Surprises, and Not Surprises

A/N: ...working as quickly as I can, under the circumstances. Thanks to those who are still around - I really appreciate it.

Ch 12

"Sam… I think it's time to quit going through all the gate diagnostics," Jack said carefully, not wanting to upset her any more, after they had sat in an unusually still and awkward silence for nearly five minutes as they waited in the infirmary for Janet to come back with the test results and give Sam the okay to go back to work.

"But…" she objected.

"I know how you feel," he continued quietly. "I feel the same way. This is the part you guys are good at. I'm going crazy feeling like I'm not able to be of any help yet - until the time comes when we need to go get her back. But…"

Sam laughed sarcastically. "YOU feel helpless? You're the one who found the only lead we've got to go on so far."

"I just got lucky. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'll take it and be glad we've got _something. _But I just got lucky that my lead panned out. Now it's your turn to figure out exactly _how _it pans out. Okay?"

She nodded after a moment, realizing he was right. She had known for a good while now that running the gate code was almost certainly going to turn up nothing - but it was something to keep her occupied and as long as there was the slightest possibility it might be useful… she sighed. "You're right."

He relaxed visibly, pleased that so far they seemed to be getting back towards working together, and glanced towards the gap in the privacy curtain before sliding out of his chair over to perch on the side of the bed. She turned her hand over and he took the invitation gratefully, squeezing her hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of it.

"…But…" Sam repeated, in a completely different tone. "You can't tell Janet about what happened at the house."

"Sam…"

"I mean it, Jack," she interrupted seriously.

The fact that she'd just called him Jack while they were on base and on duty wasn't even the most unusual thing about her statement. As Air Force officers in general, and longtime CO/2IC's to each other, their professional lives were so full of orders that they just flat out never gave them in their personal lives. Never to each other, and rarely to Jordan either, unless the situation absolutely demanded it. But there was no mistaking that tone of voice.

"I'm just worried about you too."

"I will be fine. You know I'll be far worse off if Janet decides I can't go back to work and I've got nothing to do but dwell on the fact that our daughter is no longer on earth, and is at the mercy of some unknown alien, we have no idea where in the universe she is, if she's okay, if she's hurt…"

"Okay. I just…" He wanted to say that he was scared he was going to lose both of them. It had happened to him before. With Charlie. Losing Charlie had ended his marriage to Sarah. And while now, when he looked back on it rationally, he could see that their marriage would have ended eventually anyway, without that catalyst, at the moment he wasn't able to be that objective about it - all he was thinking about was that these situations appeared to have a whole lot of basic facts in common, and if they had the same outcome as last time, he just flat out wouldn't survive it.

He wanted to say all that, or at least _try _to explain what he meant, but he just couldn't. Fraiser would be back any second, and Sam just wanted to know that he was still on her side - that he wasn't going to try to make her "take it easy." God, she hated that phrase.

"What?" Sam prompted.

"I'm worried too. That's all. Jordan's out there somewhere, just like you said, and at the moment we can't make sure she's all right. But I can make sure you're all right. That's all. I'm just… worried."

"I'm fine," she repeated. "Like I said - just too much coffee and not enough food and water. Look, let's just keep quiet about… _it… _and hope Janet doesn't ask us directly. She's better than that damn zaytarc detector when it comes to things like this."

"True," he agreed. "Okay. But I don't want us to wind up back in here in two hours. Switch to decaf for a while and… let's go work this new angle with the slower than light travel from your lab."

"Okay… but we have to make sure Teal'c and Daniel don't find out either. I'll try to give _you _a break, because I love you, but I can't handle all three of you hovering around me like I'm some Victorian doll about to swoon because my corset's too tight."

He chuckled. "Deal. Mum's the word."

xxxxx

Janet Fraiser was rarely stunned… and she certainly never allowed it to happen in her own infirmary. But as she'd been approaching Sam's bed - with one very telling chart in hand - she had stopped just outside the privacy curtain as she heard her best friend talking in a very conspiratorial, low voice so as not to be overheard.

"Just keep quiet about it and hope Janet doesn't ask us directly, my ass," she had thought to herself. Then, after they finished a very telling conversation about keeping something secret from everybody, switching to decaf coffee, too-tight corsets, and 'mum' being the word, Jack and Sam had gone quiet, and she had peeked through the gap in the curtain.

On the one hand, she was glad to see they were back to comforting rather than avoiding each other. Jack was as much on the bed as he could comfortably get, arm wrapped around Sam's shoulders. She was hugging him with her head on his shoulder. He had his cheek resting on the top of her head and they both just looked so… lost. Janet sighed, and found herself stunned that she was actually contemplating letting them off the hook on this one.

It wasn't exactly unethical… but it certainly fell into that grey area. On the one hand, there was the patient's privacy to consider… but on the other hand the patient was an Air Force officer, so her physical health and status was, often, also government business. Still… Sam was her best friend. And Janet could always keep a closer eye on her and make sure they both stuck to the agreement they'd just made with each other… it really wouldn't _hurt _anything to let them keep their secret just a _bit _longer… and it _might _even end up saving Jordan's life. Sam would certainly be an irreplaceable part of figuring out what had happened…

Janet's mind was made up. She was going to march in there, give Sam the all clear to go back to work, then go conveniently misplace the bloodwork in her hands for a week. Or two. Before she could give herself time to change her mind, one of the way-too-perky-for-the-circumstances nurses practically bounced into the infirmary with two meal trays. Janet stopped her just before she could whip the privacy curtain back. "I'll take those! Thank you!" She took the trays much less gently than she really needed to and said loudly, "Lunch time!" before slipping into the closed off area. Jack moved back to his chair so they could both eat.

"We'll eat it all, you don't have to stand there and watch," Jack glowered after several moments, at which point Janet realized she had just been looking back and forth between them with a semi-happy, semi-knowing, almost-smile.

"Right! Of course! Um, well, Sam, your bloodwork was… fine. Um, some anomalies, of course, but nothing we haven't… seen with you before. If you eat now and rest for another fifteen minutes after you're done, you can go back to work. Clear fluids only though - I'm cutting you off caffeine until further notice."

"All right," Sam agreed, although she barely managed to get it out - it was obvious she wanted to argue some of those finer points.

"Okay. Good. Well, I have work to do so I'll just… go."

Janet turned quickly and hurried out of the room. She was dying to tell them she knew… and that it was pretty ridiculous of them to think that she'd miss something that obvious in Sam's bloodwork… but they were both way too good. They hadn't even blinked at the hints she'd dropped… they played dumb _way _too well. Jack had always been good at it but Sam used to be lousy - she'd clearly learned a few things over the years from her husband. Janet had to get out of there before she changed her mind and blurted it out that she knew.

She hurried towards her office quickly so she could 'misplace' the file in her hands, and crashed right into a human wall, in this case known as one Dr. Daniel Jackson. She bounced off of him awkwardly and dropped everything she was carrying - Sam's whole current medical file, with the bloodwork results right on top of the folder.

"Janet, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Daniel asked immediately, bending down to help her gather all the papers.

"It's fine!" Janet accidentally shouted, as she crouched down quickly and began scrambling for all the loose papers. "I mean, I'm sorry too. I wasn't looking. I've got this, Daniel, you don't need to…"

It was too late. Daniel, probably as a result of years of practice speed-reading for key information, had found the one piece of paper Janet didn't want him to see.

"Sam's _pregnant?!" _Daniel spluttered.

"Shh! Daniel, be quiet! Get in here!" She grabbed his sleeve as she stood up and dragged him into her office, leaving half of the folder's contents still spilled just outside the door. Daniel was still gripping the important piece.

"Sam's… how… why haven't they said…"

"Daniel, listen to me for a second. Yes, I just ran some bloodwork on Sam and she's pregnant. VERY pregnant, judging from these hCG levels. I thought maybe she didn't know yet because she would have known she might as well tell me before I ran bloodwork… but when I came to tell her she and the General were conspiring to keep the whole thing quiet. They don't want anyone to know because they don't want Sam to be restricted in any way when she could be working on finding Jordan… and probably also because it's supposed to be a happy announcement and having to tell people that you're pregnant while your only living child is lost must be… bittersweet beyond belief, to the point where there's not an adequate word for it. I decided to let them keep it to themselves for the time being."

"But… wow, this is a lot to hear at once…"

"Yeah. But it explains why Jordan was grilling me about babies last time she was here," Janet remembered sadly, eyes tearing up as she thought about her adoptive 'niece.'

"Yeah… wait, no it doesn't," Daniel frowned. "Jordan knows already and she got through a whole day with all of us without spilling? I doubt it."

"Good point. But regardless, we're following their lead on this one. Don't you dare let on that you found out."

"Okay, but… what about the… the baby? I mean, it needs food and water and rest, right?"

"The baby will get what he or she needs from Sam - her body will put the baby's needs first, in other words. But yes. I am going to make sure she takes better care of herself. For starters, I'm about to go have all the coffee in the control room and her lab switched to decaf. So you'd better stick to what you have in your own office from now on."

"Okay. So… what else do we do?"

"Nothing. Keep your focus on finding Jordan and you can ask her yourself how she managed to keep such a big secret from everybody," Janet instructed, in her 'just _try _and argue with me' voice.

xxxxx

When Jordan came to, she was hanging upside down over Jormungand's shoulder as he walked back towards the Stargate. He could tell when she woke up and he put her down. She was glad - even though she had a terrible headache and felt like she might throw up, she didn't want him to touch or carry her. His skin felt like a snake's or something. It was really gross, and he was scary even to look at. And the closer she got to him the weirder her tummy felt, even before he made her stick her face in that thing.

She followed him placidly back to the gate, too busy trying not to throw up or pass out from dizziness to remember to shuffle her feet and bend branches. She still remembered her "J" plan and fell a few steps behind Jormungandr to check that the food blocks were still there. They were, luckily. She hid them in her palm while she was behind him.

Jormungand stopped walking and waited for her to catch up, then made her walk in front of him the rest of the way.

He had carried her most of the way back while she was unconscious, and when they got to the gate she had to think fast. If she put the pieces right by the gate they might be caught in the kawoosh and they'd be gone. As they got close to the DHD, she pretended to trip and fall next to it.

"Get up."

"Just a second. My feet hurt." She hunched over into a little ball, pretending to be picking leaves and dirt off of one foot, while the other hand snuck the little pieces of food to the base of the DHD. She put them together in a "J" and got up quickly so he wouldn't see what she was doing.

"Back to the ship?" she asked, joining him in front of the Stargate.

"Yes."

As soon as they were on the ship again, it occurred to her that there might be animals on the planet that would find the food before her parents did. She hoped not. And that food was so gross most animals probably wouldn't want to eat it anyways.

Thinking about the food, plus the dematerialization, wreaked havoc on her already sensitive stomach. She threw up. A lot. Jormungand was not pleased, complaining that she should have done it down on the planet. He gave her some extra bottles of water to rinse out her mouth and wash her face with and sent her to her room. She was glad though, because she felt terrible, and she just wanted to sleep.

She didn't even care at that point that she didn't have a pillow or blanket. She felt so tired and lousy that she just curled up in a ball and went right to sleep with her thumb in her mouth - a habit she had stopped over a year ago. It was understandable - it was the only available method of self-soothing she had at her disposal.

She didn't know it, but she slept for nearly a full day after that.

xxxxx

When Jordan woke up, she wasn't in her room anymore. Jormungand had moved her to the room with the puzzle, and she was strapped onto a bed thing that was really more like a clear plastic table. There was a disc-thing stuck to her chest, recording her vital signs. When she gained consciousness, Jormungand came over from some alien device he was using and studied her.

"What is your current status?"

"Thirsty. Need to pee. And I'm all fronic."

His eyes widened and he helped her get off the table and opened the door so she could go down the hall to the bathroom.

When she came back, she could see that the room was full of lots of things now. The puzzle was out again, and there were some books in one area, and things to write with like markers, and he was wheeling a big clear display screen over to the table she'd been laying on, along with some sort of thing that looked sort of like some of the stuff she'd seen at her Grandpa Jacob's secret base.

"What are we doing?"

"While we travel to my home planet we will be conducting an experiment."

"I don't want to do an experiment."

"From what I know of you and your mother, that is highly unlike you. Are you not curious as to why I needed you? You are a very unique child. And now that you have the knowledge of the Ancients unspooling in your brain, we shall see just how very special you are."

"The _what_? You're derentis!"

"And you are beginning to speak the language of the ancients. Your father has done the same thing. Twice, if my information is accurate. But your brain is younger and better than his. The mind of a human child is capable of much more than most people realize. Additionally, you have inherited your father's ancient gene. You would not have activated the stone around the feline's neck when you touched it if that were not the case. There is no point in explaining this further to you. Suffice it to say that both of your parents passed on many traits to you that make you extremely valuable to me."

"Why to you?"

"That is not relevant."

"I'm not helping you," Jordan said firmly, feeling suddenly brave. "Whatever you want is bad. You lied to me. You said you wouldn't hurt me if I helped you and didn't try to escape and that thing hurt me. I want to go home. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." Half of it, unknown to her, came out in Ancient. Jormungand still got the basic gist of it though.

He grabbed her quickly, by the upper arms, and started dragging her back over to the table. "At this point, that does not matter. You will not be able to stop yourself from sharing everything in your brain with me."

"You're derentis! I won't tell you anything!" She was struggling against him, kicking and squirming. She got loose and made a run for it, but didn't get far before he picked up his zat and shot her. She had never been so badly hurt before in her life. Then everything went black again.

xxxxx


	13. Revelations

A/N: The flashbacks are in italics. I'll try to wrap this up before the summer is through.

Ch 13

"It's the only explanation that makes sense," Sam said, firmly but sadly.

Jack nodded that he agreed. Teal'c put in a quiet, "Indeed," and Daniel said, "I hate to say it but I agree. I just don't know why any of the Asgard would…"

"They're the only alien allies we have that really know anything about her," Sam said.

"So one of them isn't a team player?" Jack asked rhetorically. "They've always loved her."

"Exactly. They're the only ones who know enough about her to care one way or the other…"

"That is not entirely true, Colonel Carter," Teal'c pointed out. "She has visited your father among the Tok'ra on more than one occasion."

"Yeah, and who knows - they might have another Goa'uld posing as one of them," Jack agreed quickly. While whoever had taken his daughter was not going to be shown any mercy, he had a hard time believing there was an Asgard behind this. He loved the Asgard. They loved him. And his wife, and his daughter. The Tok'ra, on the other hand… well, Jack had a long history of mistrust when it came to that lot.

Daniel and Sam were both shaking their heads though. "The Tok'ra wouldn't bother."

"Sam's right. You know that a lot of the Tok'ra don't think an un-blended human is worth a whole lot one way or the other. I think whoever took Jordan either needs her for something or is afraid of her for some reason."

"Exactly," Sam agreed. "And the Tok'ra would never turn to a five year old human child for either of those things."

Jack hated to admit it, but they were right. Still… next time he ran into Jacob - who had been working nonstop with Hammond since he had arrived - Jack thought he might just try to drop a few hints… still, assuming the Tok'ra weren't involved, that really did leave only the Asgard.

And now that he thought about it… "Hey, whatever happened to that Cokey guy?" When he received three puzzled stares in response, he added, "Short grey guy, skinny arms and legs, stole my ass while I was sleeping and made a mini-me…"

"Oh, _Loki_!" Daniel realized.

Jack shrugged. "Whatever."

"If Thor ever gets back to us, I guess we can ask him," Sam said. "Although… I don't know, Loki seemed fairly… inept. The way he took you… it was such a clumsy experiment. This plan took a lot of time and effort to execute."

"So we get Thor to take us home with him, herd all their identical gray butts into one room, and start sorting out the good apples from the bad one," Jack suggested.

A bright white beam of light shot down between Teal'c and Daniel and Thor materialized in time to say, right on cue, "That will not be necessary, O'Neill."

Everyone greeted him enthusiastically, thanking him profusely for helping. "Before you express your gratitude further," Thor finally interrupted. "Please allow me to express my humblest apologies, on behalf of myself and the entire Asgard race."

"Apologies? What for?"

"You are not entirely wrong in your thought processes, O'Neill."

"Stop, Thor, all that flattery will give me a headache," Jack replied - his sarcasm sometimes switched itself over to Automatic.

Ignoring him, Thor continued. "I am afraid that Jordan O'Neill was taken - at least in part - to settle a very old score."

xxxxx

When Jordan woke up again she was back on the plastic table, only this time she was strapped down. Jormungand came over to her with a thing in his hand, a circle with a thick point on it that looked kind of like a giant thumbtack. "This is going to hurt," he warned.

She was having trouble understanding his words but she knew what he meant, even before he pressed it into her temple. She screamed and cried, unable to help it. He ignored her. She knew by this point that he had only been pretending to be sort of nice to her before so she would cooperate before they got to that planet. Now he didn't need to bother.

He hooked up a big device on another table to the one stuck to her head with some thin wires, put the egg-thing back on her chest, and grabbed something that looked like nose-hair trimmers. "Now. We will start off easy, to get you used to the technology before the knowledge in your brain completely unspools. Tell me everything you know about Thor and the other Asgard."

He touched the nose-hair trimmer looking thing to the thing on her head and she screamed again. She couldn't stop her mind from immediately going to Thor, last time she'd seen him. Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the picture in her mind displayed on the screen next to her.

So that was how he was going to do it. She didn't have to _say _anything. Whatever thing he'd done to her made it so as soon as she thought about it at all, he could just _see _it - like her brain was hooked right up to a TV. What was she supposed to do now?

_Concentrate… _

Her mind jumped to playing Concentration with her Mom on the coffee table at the cabin, with her Dad's Simpsons playing cards, and the images on the screen did the same thing. Not really the same kind of concentration, but it still worked…

"No. Not your parents. The Asgard," Jormungand said firmly, trying to redirect her thoughts.

The device gave her a little shock again and Jordan's mind went back to Thor. _Last time she'd seen him, just after her birthday. He had made her hold a few different stone things - some kind of tests. He'd taken some blood - just a drop was all he needed, not like Auntie who always took more. Thor and her parents went to talk about something secret while Uncle Teal'c held her in front of the big window so she could look out at Earth. _

_She overheard Daddy yelling at Thor about something and Mommy calming him down. She had never been able to get them to tell her what it was about even though she knew it was about her. Then Thor had done some things to their house to make it even safer. _

_He'd said something about being able to put something into her belly button, but her mom made him be quiet before Jordan got to hear more. _

_He had changed the subject and told her that he had a special surprise for her, and called all his Asgard friends on their new planet up on his big display screen. She could see lots of them - they all looked like Thor, but she could always tell him apart from the rest. They were gathered like they were having a party. _

"_What are you celebating?" she asked. _

"_They're having a birthday party for you, pal," her mom told her, crouching down next to her and hugging her. _

"_For me?" _

"_Yeah. But no cake," her dad lamented. _

_She smiled up at him. "We had cake at my other party, Daddy. But no Asgards. You said Thor didn't have time to come to my party!" _

_She wriggled out of her mother's arms and ran over to Thor, hugging him tightly. _

"_Uh, baby be careful, we don't want to…" her mom started. _

_Her dad was just laughing. "You're one to talk. At least he's still bigger than her." _

"_I do not mind," Thor assured her parents, patting Jordan on the back. _

"_Just be gentle, Jo," her dad insisted. _

_Jordan gave him a 'well, duh' look and smiled at Thor again. "Thank you for my birthday party, Thor." She kissed him on the cheek. _

"_You are welcome, Jordan O'Neill. Would you like to know on what planet your party is taking place?" _

"_Your new planet that you moved to, to be safe from the Replicators?" Jordan asked. She knew all about the Replicators - they were the reason she knew about the Stargate in the first place. She'd been evacuated to the Alpha site when she was two and a half, and after the threat was over and she'd gone home, her parents had quickly realized she wasn't going to forget about it anytime soon - when Cassie was babysitting, Jordan drew a wobbly - but identifiable - Stargate on her bedroom wall. After that, they had all just agreed to stop trying to keep her in the dark, and just teach her how to keep the secret instead._

"_Yes. As you know, this ship is the Teal'c. You have been aboard the one named after your mother as well, although you were very young and probably do not remember it." _

"_Mommy said she blowed up the first one you named after Daddy." _

"_Blew up," her mom corrected gently. Her dad pretended to still be sad about it until Jordan patted his knee reassuringly. _

"_We have named several of our ships after the members of SG-1. Jordan O'Neill, we have named our new home world after you. The Asgard you are looking at right now are celebrating your fifth birthday on Jordana." _

_Her mouth had dropped open. After a little while her Dad had laughed and said, "Wow, Thor. We have to thank you, little buddy. That's the first time she's been speechless since she learnt to talk!" _

"_Why… why would you name your planet after me? I'm just a little kid." _

_Thor put his hands on her shoulders and tried to smile, but his mouth was so small he could barely do it. "You are much more than that, Jordan. To everyone who knows you, I am sure. To myself and the rest of the Asgard as well. You are very special." _

She was tired when she came out of the memory, and feeling more homesick than ever. She was crying, and not even a tiny bit on purpose.

"Did you not wonder why you have always been of such interest to the Asgard?"

She shook her head, but couldn't seem to stop herself from answering. "My mom and dad know Thor. And I got special stuff in my blood because Mommy had a Tok'ra in her like Grampa so I have to get lots of tests done on me and stuff. I can't go to the regular doctor. I gotta go to Auntie every other month and Thor once a year."

"Yes, but do you know _why?_"

"I don't care," she said, now crying quietly and trying to avoid looking at him.

"I would think you would be curious to know that you owe your existence to the Asgard."

She shook her head firmly and the memory of Aunt Janet telling her about babies popped up on the screen. No! She had to make that one go away NOW! If Jormungand found out why she was asking those questions then he'd go after her Mommy too to get the baby before he could protect himself even a little bit like she could…

She started singing Uncle Danny's German song again. It worked. The picture changed. She just had to think really hard about only one thing… _think happy thoughts… _like how they flew in Peter Pan! She started thinking about happy memories so quickly that Jormungand had to turn up the power on his device and use it again.

"Your mind is truly formidable."

Formidable! That was the word people used for Uncle Teal'c! She started thinking about him, hard, and wished she'd paid more attention all those times he said he had to make sure she was a "balanced warrior."

She imagined as hard as she could that she was back in his quarters after they sparred, trying to do kel-no-reem with him. She made herself remember exactly where all the candles had been… she could tell it was working because Jormungand was getting angry, manipulating the controls on the device frantically and grumbling to himself. She made herself tune him out though so it wouldn't distract her, thinking harder than she ever remembered thinking before in her life. When she risked peeking at the screen, it was all black apart from the candles in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and kept at it.

Finally, Jormungand gave up. "Enough for today. Eat and rest. Tomorrow we will continue."

He took all the devices off of her but left the circle on her forehead. He removed her restraints and left. A few seconds later, the equipment disappeared and food and water appeared. She sat up tiredly and sipped some water, looking around at all the new stuff in the room. Taking the yellow square to nibble on, she got off the table/bed on shaky legs and examined everything more closely. She was tired - exhausted actually - but not _sleepy. _She felt very weird. She didn't know how to describe it, so she didn't try.

She sat down and did the pyramid puzzle again while she ate. Unbeknownst to her, Jormungand was watching. While it wasn't surprising that she could do the puzzle faster a second time, this time she did it in less than five minutes.

Bored with that, she wandered over to the stack of books. She read the titles, but saw that they were all about religion or something. Not really fascinating material for a five year old, but Uncle Daniel would want to see them. "Boring," she announced, moving on.

Next she found a small ball, about the size of a magic eight ball. Its entire surface was made out of pieces that could be slid around into different positions, which would change the pattern of the little dots engraved into the surface. She slid them around for a few moments and then realized she'd made three of the panels into the constellation Orion. So _that _was the point of it. Kind of like one of those Rubik's cubes, but of space. She smiled as she thought about all the time spent up on the roof with her mom and dad, looking through the telescope, and within half an hour had slid the rest of the pieces into place. Well, from Earth. It occurred to her that the sky wouldn't look like that from other planets.

Bored with the toy's actual purpose now, she decided that a ball was a ball and started bouncing it against the wall nearest her and catching it. When she tired of the game, she went to sleep, hoping that tomorrow she would feel better, and be able to concentrate better when he hooked her up to all those machines.

xxxxx

General Hammond surveyed the room quickly. After Thor's arrival, everyone had immediately congregated in the briefing room, so that Thor only had to tell his information once. The room was crowded - in addition to himself, General O'Neill, SG-1, Dr. Fraiser, and Jacob Carter were all sitting around the table, all staring at Thor, awaiting an explanation, at last.

"Once again, I must begin by apologizing for not arriving earlier, and for arriving with information that, while hopefully helpful, is not, I fear, going to give you all the answers you seek," Thor began.

"Just tell us what you do know, please, Thor," Sam said.

"Very well. I received your message, and am most disturbed by the news that Jordan is missing. Even more so because, as I mentioned before, I believe I am inadvertently responsible for her disappearance. I do not exactly know where to begin. You stated that she was lured from your home by a cat, did you not?"

"Yes, a kitten," Jack said. "It's um, in the infirmary if you want to see it."

"I doubt that will be necessary…"

"Oh, God, of course!" Daniel suddenly exclaimed, drawing all the attention in the room to him like a magnet.

"Danny? Something you want to share with the whole class?" Jack asked.

"It's Jormungand, isn't it?" Daniel asked, all his attention on Thor. "Why didn't I see it before… of course…"

"Daniel Jackson is correct," Thor stated, nodding his head. "My oldest enemy, Jormungand. I believe he used the cat to lure Jordan as, I believe you say, a calling card. So that I would know he was responsible, and that he wanted me to know."

"Daniel, fill in the blanks for those of us who don't get the calling card thing," Jacob said.

"Jormungand - in Norse mythology, was one of the sons of Loki…"

"Oy," Jack interrupted quietly, thinking of his least favorite Asgard.

"Anyway, in Norse mythology, he is the son of Loki and a giantess, Angrboda. According to legend, the gods were alarmed at how quickly this monster was growing and feared that one day Jormungand would bring a great evil upon both the gods and manking. Odin decided it would be best to render it harmless. He threw the serpend into the ocean that surrounds the earth, although now that I think about it I'm assuming that's meant to be the stargate… anyway, according to legend the serpent was already so large that it spans the entire world. It's also known as the Midgard Serpent - and you might recognize the modern symbol of the Oroborus - a snake in a circle, eating its own tail." He suddenly got that "breakthrough" look on his face and turned back to Thor excitedly. "Thor! Is it possible for an Asgard to be taken over by a Goa'uld?"

"That is correct, Daniel Jackson," Thor said. "Jormungand was taken as a host - but willingly. His thirst for power was already legendary. Thousands of years ago, when our entire race was working towards our collective goal to prolong our lives through the cloning procedure, Jormungand sought power for himself only. Once we learnt of the Goa'uld he allowed himself to be taken as a host, so that the collective knowledge of the Goa'uld, increased longevity of life, and enhanced strength, would give him a distinct advantage over the rest of the Asgard."

"But once he was taken as a host he wouldn't be in control anymore."

"An Asgard's brain is far more formidable than a human's," Jacob contributed. "I think - and Selmak agrees - that blending a Goa'uld and an Asgard would result in something more similar to the relationship we as Tok'ra experience. If the Goa'uld and the Asgard had a similar agenda in mind, over thousands of years the personalities would probably become so inextricably linked that now he no longer thinks of himself as two separate beings in one body at all."

"That is our assumption as well," Thor agreed.

Jack raised a hand. "While this is all fascinating on a very disturbing level, what does it have to do with finding our daughter?"

"Unfortunately, not much, I fear," Thor said. "While we know who took Jordan - and how, roughly, we only have a vague idea of where he has been living the past few thousand years."

"Where does the cat come in again?" Jack asked.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Daniel said. "Um, there's one story that's only found in the Prose Edda. It's commonly known as 'Lifting the cat.' In the story, Loki has set a series of tasks for Thor. In one of them, he encounters the serpent, Jormungand, disguised as a giant cat. Thor's task is to lift the cat, and he manages to lift one of its feet off the ground - a fantastic feat by itself."

"The story is highly fictionalized," Thor said, clearly still a little touchy about the subject. "The object was a Goa'uld mothership, which had descended upon a rural village. I was attempting to expand my own ship's anti-gravitational field to envelop his ship as well."

"Wow," Sam said, clearly impressed.

"Uh, yeah, wow," Janet contributed.

"Sorry. It's just… expanding one ship's antigravity field to enclose an entire Goa'uld mothership… _wow._"

"As the story reveals, I was not entirely successful," Thor said. "But the ship in question was designed after one of the Egyptian gods of your planet and did feature several large feline designs on the exterior. Jormungand attempted to spread the story far and wide - the fictionalized version of course."

"Well. Anything else about this guy we should know?" Jack asked, looking to both Thor and Daniel for answers.

"Well, I don't know if it's relevant, and I certainly hope that it's not, but… it's said that at the end of the world - Ragnarok, Jormungand will drag himself from the ocean and poison the skies. Thor will kill Jormungand and then walk nine steps before falling dead from the serpent's poison," Daniel said.

"Wow. That's pretty harsh, little buddy," Jack said to Thor, who nodded.

"That story is merely a prediction of the future. It was created by humans.'

"So there's no way that's why he took Jo, is there?" Sam asked. "I mean, he can't be trying to somehow use her to… to bring about Ragnarok or anything?"

"I do not believe so, no," Thor assured her. "Which, I am afraid, is where I fail you. I have no knowledge of why he took Jordan - nothing beyond mere conjecture."

"Well, join the club," Jack grumbled.


	14. Figuring

Author's Note: I know, it's pointless to keep apologizing for the ridiculous delays in getting this story done. Just know that Kate finished all her sections a month ago, at least, and is refusing to let me leave this story unfinished.

Ch 14

When Jordan woke up in the morning, her head felt… fuzzy. Kind of like she was underwater trying to hear people talk who were above the water. But not exactly like that either. She also wasn't cold anymore, she noticed belatedly. It was cold on Jormungand's ship and she had been cold since she got there, apart from when she had been very worked up and crying very hard, jumping around singing, or down on the planet with that horrible machine. Now she was warm and toasty. She wondered why - since Jormungand had never seemed concerned that she was cold before, she really doubted he'd cranked up the thermostat now to make her feel better.

Almost exactly as she thought of him, he entered the room, probably having seen her wake up on the cameras. "You have been asleep for a very long time," he informed her. "What is your current status?"

"Iam ego indeo prayessi ut laboris," Jordan said out loud. She'd meant it, and thought she'd said it, as, "I really need to go to the bathroom - now!" As soon as she said it she had to go even more badly than before, and she started hopping up and down impatiently.

Jormungand finally understood, she supposed, because he stepped aside in the doorway and waved her by. He followed her though, which he hadn't been doing lately, and waited outside the "bathroom" until she re-emerged. He then directed her back to the room immediately, handed her a red triangle, and told her to eat it while he started fiddling with all the equipment from yesterday, getting it ready. Jordan ate absently, realizing she was very hungry and not caring about the taste at all. She was thinking very hard about what to do today. No matter what Jormungand said to her, she had to be very careful to think only about things that wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know. Since she wasn't really sure _what _he wanted to know, that might be hard though. She would just have to try hard not to think about anything to do with the Stargate, the SGC, or the Asgard. She took a deep breath and tried hard to think about the right things as he hooked her back up to the machines.

xxxxx

"Okay," Daniel said tiredly. "Let's try to go through this again. Why would Jormungand want Jordan?"

"Who gives a damn why he wants her?" Jack snapped impatiently. "All that matters is _where _he took her, not why!"

Before Daniel had time to respond to the outburst, Jacob said gently, "Everyone wants to know where she is, Jack. And since we don't have anything else to go on at the moment, if we can figure out his motives it might give us a place to start."

Jack knew he had a point, but he was sick of not getting anywhere. Usually as soon as Thor arrived, things started happening… getting fixed. While Thor had provided much-needed information, they were really no closer to finding his daughter than they had been before he'd arrived, so far.

"Look," Daniel started carefully, knowing he was about to push an even more sensitive button with Jack. "We know Jordan is… special. Maybe if you told us a little more thoroughly why Thor and Janet are always checking her…"

"She's fine!" Sam interrupted harshly, surprising everyone with a very Jack-like outburst. "There's nothing wrong with her! That's all Thor and Janet have ever learnt with their exams, okay, Daniel!"

Jack squeezed her hand under the table. She squeezed back gratefully.

"Okay, Sam," Daniel said, in an overly-soothing voice that Sam suddenly found incredibly annoying. "But… if that's completely true, why do you bring her in for checkups so often? You can't tell me you haven't always been… worried about something."

He was trying to be as tactful as he could while being useful towards the more important purpose here - figuring out what happened to Jordan. He realized he must have failed miserably when Sam burst into tears. Janet kicked him in the shin swiftly under the table, and he felt doubly terrible when he remembered Sam and Jack's "secret."

"I'm sorry, Sam," he mumbled, as Jack tried to comfort her and she kept mumbling, "She's fine, there's nothing wrong with her," in between sobs and sniffles.

"Colonel Carter is correct," Thor interjected, trying to take some of the attention away from his upset friends. He wasn't entirely sure how to go about doing that, as the Asgard didn't get upset as a rule and he had never known one to cry. So he merely set about answering Daniel's question on his own. "Jordan O'Neill is a perfectly healthy child. She always has been, and it is my hope than in subsequent exams she continues to be so."

"Then why do you come all the way here once a year to examine her, and why is she of such interest to the Asgard? I mean, as much as we all love Jordan, I really doubt the Asgard named their new planet after her just because she's adorable," Daniel pressed.

Sam had got control of herself. "Just go ahead and tell them everything," she instructed Thor weakly. "I doubt it'll help but go ahead."

"Very well," Thor said. "Dr. Fraiser, would you like to begin?"

"Umm, okay, sure," Janet said, surprised that Thor considered her input worth anything. "Well, um, you all know that Sam has naquadah in her blood because of her blending with Jolinar, and that in the past she has still been able to access some of Jolinar's memories. Because of the… connection… between a mother and a child in the womb, there was… concern… that the naquadah in Sam's blood would be transmitted to Jordan as well."

"Dr. Fraiser, we know that Jordan O'Neill's blood contains naquadah," Teal'c interrupted. He had sensed that since the child's birth, after all. "Forgive the bluntness of the Tau'ri expression, but, 'so what'?"

Janet looked so taken aback at being addressed like that by Teal'c that it was several moments of silence before Thor answered instead. "There are many things we do not know about the way in which a former host retains some memories from the Goa'uld or Tok'ra with which it was blended. Genetic memory is a foreign concept to you and, to some extent, to the Asgard as well. Since our consciousnesses are merely transferred out of our bodies and into new ones when needed, there is no real transference of memory from one mind to the next. It has been my concern - one that I shared with the O'Neill family shortly after Jordan's birth, and one which Colonel Carter informed me had been worrying her too - that it might be possible that the subconscious remnants of Jolinar could be passed on to her daughter's subconscious as well. Obviously, out of concern for Jordan, we have tried to watch for signs that any subconscious memories may have unspooled themselves into her conscious mind. Memories of the most hunted Tok'ra of all time would, to say the least, be disturbing to a child."

"Like Shifu, having the memories of a thousand Hitlers," Daniel said quietly.

"That's what worried me," Sam agreed, wiping her eyes.

"But Sam," Jacob contributed. "Shifu was the offspring of not one but two hosts. Hosts who were still controlled by Goa'uld when he was conceived _and _born. Jack said Kanaan never actually blended with his own consciousness, and even if he had, neither of you have been blended with a Tok'ra in years. I really don't think you have anything to worry about."

"I know she couldn't be exactly like Shifu, Dad. But the point is, there could be some similarity there. Some sort of… heavily diluted version."

"The scary thing is…" Janet contributed. "Sam may be right. The naquadah in her blood alone doesn't really give cause for alarm - Sam and Cassie have always been fine. But Jordan's brain scans… they show some similarities - again, to a lesser degree - to General O'Neill's patterns when he had the ancient knowledge downloaded into his brain, and to Cassie's when Nirrti's experiments with Hok'tar kicked in."

"Jordan's never shown any… abilities… like they did though, has she?" Daniel asked, alarmed at the thought and more than a little hurt that they hadn't told him about it. Teal'c, from the look on his face, felt exactly the same way.

"No," Jack said quickly. "She's fine. Like Sam said. That's why we never told anybody. We didn't want you guys to treat her differently. She's just a kid."

"Well…" Janet said. "While it's true that she's never sent chess pieces spinning and light bulbs exploding… she _does _have some… anomalous brain activity."

"Parts of her brain that are normally inactive in humans have shown activity before, particularly when she is asleep," Thor said. "We believe this has to do with the… what was the term you have given it?"

"The ATA gene," Sam supplied.

"Yes. The Ancient gene that O'Neill and Jordan both possess."

"In short, Daniel," Sam said dryly, getting to her feet, "I've always been terrified that having the ancient gene is going to activate the Tok'ra memories I stuck in my daughter's head." She hurried out of the room, crying again but not wanting everyone to see her crying, or having to see their looks of sympathy any more. She knew what they'd all say - that it wasn't her fault, that there was no way to know, or prevent, what had happened, and that so far nothing _had _ever happened to confirm her worst fears… but now that Jordan was gone, had been taken by a Goa'ulded Asgard… it was all her fault.

At that moment, it didn't matter that Jack had always maintained that it wasn't her fault, and that Jordan was fine anyway… the simple facts spoke for themselves. She had passed something on to her daughter that, at the very least, had made her the target of an intergalactic kidnapping. How could Daniel actually be hurt that she hadn't told him about this? Didn't he understand how unbelievably guilty she had always felt, worrying that someday, something would happen to her daughter because of her?

She wasn't surprised when Jack caught up with her shortly after she shut herself up in her lab. She didn't object or argue when he pulled her into a hug and cried with her and promised her that they would find Jordan, and that it wasn't her fault. And, as much as she appreciated the effort, at the moment, she didn't believe him either.

xxxxx


	15. Fishing

Ch 15

"It doesn't make sense," Daniel said to the room, breaking the awkward silence that had descended after Jack shoved past him and went after his wife. "Even if that did ever happen, which nobody even knows for sure is remotely possible… why would that make Jormungand want Jordan? He _is _a Goa'uld. He doesn't need whatever small fragment of genetic memory Jordan may be carrying. It's of no use to him at all."

"I agree," Jacob said.

"As do I," Thor agreed. "Which is why I stated earlier that I am uncertain as to why Jormungand would seek her out."

"Perhaps you could then tell us more about why Jordan has always been of great interest to the Asgard in general," Teal'c suggested. "While I am certain that you would perform any tests necessary to allay Colonel Carter's fears about her daughter's health and mind, for the sake of all of the O'Neills in general, because you are our friend, I do not see how this would make Jordan O'Neill interesting to the rest of the Asgard."

"You may recall the circumstances which ultimately led to Jordan's birth in the first place," Thor said.

Daniel snorted. "_Recall _that you dropped in one day, asked Sam and Jack to have a baby to solve your genetic degradation problem, and then stuck them in a space-time bubble till they and the president changed their minds? Yeah, I think we remember that."

Thor remained unaffected by the change in Daniel's tone, but General Hammond had never heard the archaeologist speak to anyone, much less to Thor, with such disrespect, at least not when Daniel was of sound mind. "Watch it, son. Thor did that with my permission and help, knowing that the chances that Jordan would actually solve their cloning problem were minimal at best, because he and I both saw it as a convenient way to get them excused from the fraternization regs they were too damn stubborn to ignore on their own. We were just trying to give them a chance to be happy."

"I'm sorry, sir," Daniel apologized sheepishly, feeling terrible. "Sorry, Thor," he added, sitting back down.

At the next awkward silence that descended, Teal'c said, "Then we are correct in assuming that Jordan is not the solution to your cloning problem?"

"I do not believe she is," Thor said firmly. "She is a remarkable child in many ways, as I am sure you will all agree. But I do not believe that in that respect she is anything more than another step forward from O'Neill. An important link, to be sure, but far from being the solution."

Hammond cleared his throat, so Thor continued, although somewhat more reluctantly. "Several of the other Asgard are not as convinced as I am. There are those who believe that she may still hold answers, that we have not learnt how to see or that she may, in time, learn how to give us."

"Because of the active sections of her brain," Daniel finished, thinking out loud.

"Yes," Thor said.

"The irony is that the older she gets the less likely that is to be true," Janet contributed. Everyone turned to her with silent pleas for explanation. "Her brain, at each subsequent scan, has looked more and more normal. The dormant areas were most active at her very first scan, in other words. If the pattern continues, as I know Sam and Jack have hoped, by the time she hits puberty her brain scan should be completely indistinguishable from any other."

"That must be why they've never had any other children," Jacob said, speaking out loud just as the thought occurred to him - something Selmak admonished him for immediately when everyone turned to look at him. "I just… I always wondered why they never seemed to want any more kids, when they're so crazy about Jordan and everything. If they've always been worried about this… it explains a lot. I guess even if Jordan turns out to be okay they wouldn't want to risk this happening again with different results."

Daniel caught Janet's eye, and she shook her head firmly. Teal'c was the only one who noticed the silent exchange. Nobody said anything for several moments, until General Hammond finally said, "Well, now everybody knows everything and we still know nothing about how to find Jordan. I suggest we take a break. Maybe if we all go back to work on what we're all best at, with this new information, something will occur to someone."

xxxxx

"You are making this unnecessarily unpleasant for yourself. The more you continue to resist, the more pain you will be forced to endure," Jormungand said. He had been trying to guide Jordan's thoughts for the better part of an hour. So far, the only thing the interface had shown him was last year's Halloween party Jordan had convinced her parents to throw.

Jordan was thinking hard about the memory, determined to remember it in as much detail as possible.

_She and her mom had got her costume first, super-early. At first she wanted to be Hermione from Harry Potter, but when they were at the costume store she had seen a sparkly pair of red shoes… long story short, last year's Halloween party had been a smash hit. Although it had been somewhat dampened when Siler, in his R2D2 costume, and Walter, as C-3PO, had complained that it wasn't fair for SG-1 to WIN the costume contest when it was their own party… but everyone had agreed that Jordan made the cutest Dorothy in the world. It had been pretty easy, Jordan remembered fondly, when Daddy came home from work while she was trying on her costume, to convince him to be the Scarecrow… and her SG-1 uncles had never been able to say no to her either… Teal'c made a very good Tin Man, and Daniel was the best lion since Simba, Jordan had declared in front of everyone at the party. Her mom had been a very pretty Glinda and had spent most of the night glaring at other SGC people who looked like they wanted to comment on the Lt. Colonel's sparkly pink outfit. Only Aunt Janet had refused to participate, but that was Daddy's fault, really… he really shouldn't have suggested she be the Wicked Witch. _

"It may interest you to know, Miss O'Neill, that I am not interested in such worthless data. Tell me what I want to know."

"I don't _know _what you want to know! This is derentis!" Jordan's outburst took both of them by surprise, but his statement had been effective - her concentration was broken. The image on the display flickered a few times and disappeared, only to be replaced with an image of Jordan's classroom.

_She was looking out at the rest of her class, feeling very small in her uniform, which was still relatively new. "Jordan," her teacher said, in a tone of voice that just meant you'd better do whatever you'd done wrong better the next time around. "I asked you to write the answer on the board." _

_Confused, Jordan turned back to the board after looking down at the piece of chalk in her hand. "But I did," Jordan said simply. She was staring right at the answer, for crying out loud! Her teacher had written a problem on the board (12 X 15) and Jordan had written the answer (180). What was the problem?? _

"_In this class, Miss O'Neill, we show our work." _

"_That's my work!" _

"_You are being difficult on purpose. How did you arrive at that answer?"_

"_I just did 12 times 15. That's all." _

"_Yes, but how did you know what to do?" _

"_I just did what it said!" _

"_But I am not interested in getting the correct answer. I can do that with a calculator. I want to know what YOU know." _

"_Well, I KNOW 12 times 15 is 180!!" Jordan said, getting mad. "12 times 12 is 144, and 12 plus 3 is fifteen. 3 times 12 is 36 so just add 36 to 144 and that's the answer, 180. Or do it the other way if that's what you want! 15 times 15 is 225, minus 3 times 15 which is 45..." _

"_That is not the way we do our multiplication, Miss O'Neill. Please sit down." _

"_But I got it right! What difference does it make to you HOW I did it so long as I did it??" _

"_Jordan O'Neill, you have caused enough disruption for one morning. Either take your seat and let another student show you how to do the problem properly, or you may go see the principal." _

_Jordan slammed the chalk down and stomped out of the classroom, trying to make as much noise as possible with the heels of her Mary Janes on each stomp. _

"HA!" Jordan said, turning her attention back to Jormungand. "I didn't tell my teacher, what makes you think I'm gonna tell _you _what you wanna know?"

"Because unlike your teacher, I am not so patient. Perhaps I should try another approach."

"You don't know what you're doing at all, do ya?" Jordan asked suddenly. "You're just fishing around in my brain hoping you find something euge!"

As soon as she said "fishing," the screen changed again.

_They were up at the cabin. Jordan was squirming, trying to break away from her mother to join her father out on the dock. "Mommy I don'wanna wife-jacket! I swim good! I'ma big-girl!" _

"_I know, pal," her mom said consolingly, even as she snapped the offensive life jacket snugly into place over Jordan's brand new, favorite of all time swimsuit. Jordan looked down at herself. Now she couldn't even SEE the big daisy on the front. "But we just want you to be safe while you're fishing with Daddy." _

"_I not gonna fall in-da wake, Mommy! I'm FREE now," Jordan reminded, holding up three fingers for emphasis. _

"_I know you won't fall in the lake on purpose, baby, but accidents happen. Just ask your Uncle Daniel," her mom said, pulling Jordan's bucket hat down snugly to her ears and tapping her nose lightly, smiling at her. _

"_Okay, Mommy," Jordan grumbled, picking up her Winnie-the-Pooh fishing pole. "I might catch a weally big fish that pulls me wight in-da water!" she decided, clearly thrilled at the prospect of something like that happening. _

_Sam couldn't help laughing. "Good luck with that, honey. I think the biggest thing in that lake would be any lost bait that survived Daddy's LAST fishing trip. But you never know." _

_Jordan laughed. _

"_Now, go have fun. Just be careful." _

"_You're not coming, Mommy?" _

"_I will in just a little bit, buddy. I have to go get you some more milk and pick something up at the store for lunch." _

"_We'll catch you some fishies for lunch, Mommy!" _

"_Oh, yummy. Well, just in case the fishies aren't hungry, I'll get you some hot dogs too, okay?" _

"_Okay," Jordan decided, nodding. _

"_Be good for Daddy." _

"_I'm al-a-ways good!" Jordan insisted with a grin, trotting off towards the dock and her father. _

"Very interesting," Jormungand remarked, cutting off the power to the entire device. Jordan was jolted violently out of the happy memory and it took a second to process what had happened and what Jormungand had said.

"Why's _that _one interesting to you and all the other ones aren't?" she asked.

"Because. I made the initial mistake of underestimating you, Jordan O'Neill. But I believe I now know how to cure the problem. You may spend the rest of the day as you wish. I need time to gather a few things. Tomorrow, I shall be the one giving the history lessons."

Jordan didn't much like the sound of that, but she was at least very glad to get away from that machine, and Jormungand, for the rest of the day. Thinking so hard, trying so hard to think only about happy things, about her family, and not about any of the things she wasn't supposed to talk about, was very, very hard. It made her very tired. Plus there was all this other stuff in her head that hadn't been there before. She knew it was from that stupid head-grabbing machine. So she was trying hard to keep that stuff secret too, whatever it was. It just kept on getting harder and harder to ignore. Plus, at first it hadn't made any sense - it had just been like somebody was playing a TV screen of static in the background of her head all the time. Only it kept getting bigger and louder and now… clearer. Her dad sometimes joked that Mommy's neck got sore sometimes because her brain was so full of stuff. Mommy said that couldn't happen, and Jordan had double-checked with Aunt Janet, just to be sure. But still. Now she thought maybe they were wrong. Her head felt WAY too full.

xxxxx

Jacob knocked softly on the door to Sam's lab. "Sam, it's me," he called.

"Come in," he heard, followed by a muffled sniffle.

He opened the door and stepped inside. "Hey, kid. Jack told me you were in here, that you were feeling a little better now."

"Yeah," Sam replied, although she didn't look like she was feeling better at all.

"Look… I came to say goodbye. I'm hoping we'll get a lead soon and I want to be ready when we do. I'm going to go get my cargo ship and bring it back, in case we need one when we go get Jordan. I just don't want anyone to have to wait on me to find one once we have a rescue plan. It's the only thing I can think to do that might be helpful. I don't like feeling useless here on the base, waiting for you guys and Thor to come up with something."

"Yeah, join the club," she said dryly, then tried to smile. "Sorry Dad, it's just…"

"I know, Sammy. Nobody should ever have to wonder where their own kid is." He hugged her, surprised at how light and weak her return hug was. Her arms were shaky.

"Good luck, Dad. I hope we know more when you get back."

He nodded and kissed her cheek. "Take care of yourself. And that guy you married."

She gave a real, albeit tired, smile at that, used to her dad pretending Jack bothered him, when in reality it often occurred to her that the two of them really got along better than she and her dad had for the majority of her life. "Thanks, Dad. For all your help."

"Hey, that's my granddaughter everyone's talking about up there. I don't care how many Asgard think she's amazing, they've got nothing on me!"

xxxxx


	16. Empty Nest

Ch 16

"Hey, Jack," Daniel said cautiously, approaching his friend, who was sitting at SG1's usual table in the empty commissary. Jack had his elbows on the table and was picking at a cup of coffee, staring into it with an intense, yet unfocused and weary concentration.

"Daniel," he greeted neutrally, not looking up.

"I hope Sam's feeling a little better," Daniel said hesitantly as he sat down opposite. "I mean, under the circumstances. I mean, I didn't want to upset her so much I just… thought we should all know everything if we're going to come up with some answers and… I mean, I hope you're here by yourself because she's better now and she's working again or resting or something but… I didn't want to interrupt her to apologize without checking to see if she's okay now and…"

"She's not okay. None of us are," Jack interrupted. "But… if you're asking if she's still mad at you, Spacemonkey, then no. Hell, you're probably Golden Boy of the SGC again by now."

"What are you talking about?" Daniel asked.

"Forget it," Jack mumbled.

"No. What did you mean by that, Jack?"

"Everybody knows none of this is your fault, Danny, so just get back to work, okay? Sam doesn't blame you, I don't blame you, nobody blames you for anything because none of it's your fault. So just… back off, okay?"

"Sam's not the only one who thinks what happened to Jordan is her fault, is she?" Daniel asked quietly.

"What part of 'back off' confuses you, Daniel? 'Cause I can substitute the 'back' for a less ambiguous word, if it would help you."

Daniel ignored the threat and continued. "You feel just as guilty as Sam does, only she's always felt guilty for giving Jordan the naquadah, and you've always felt guilty for giving her the ancient gene, but neither of you ever talk about it because what you're most scared of is that it was the combination of the two that might cause a problem. And that she must secretly blame you for it, and vice versa."

"Thank you, Dr. Phil," Jack said sarcastically. "And for the record, we're not as hopeless as you seem to think. We've talked about it a lot, Mr. Communication. We were both fine until we went downstairs one morning and our daughter was gone. So quit thinking you know everything about who should feel guilty and who shouldn't, because you don't have a clue, all right?"

"All right," Daniel said. "Then… you could give me one."

Jack looked at him evenly, and got to his feet. "None of this is Sam's fault. Jordan being taken was completely, one hundred percent my fault. Spread it around if you want, I don't care anymore, because it's true. It was entirely my fault, and that's all you need to know about it."

He left the commissary quickly, feeling like now that he had finally said it out loud to someone, everyone knew. Everyone would blame him now, for real, even if they'd all been secretly blaming him all along. Especially Sam. She felt partly responsible, he knew, because of Jordan's history… but what had happened that terrible Saturday morning was all his fault. It was only a matter of time before she pointed that out to him.

xxxxx

Daniel watched from the top of the stairs as Sam poured herself another cup of coffee. Unbeknownst to her, it was decaf. He hadn't observed that it had made much difference in the past few days. Sam may have thought she was running on caffeine, but it had to be pure adrenaline and fear. And the first one, at least, was bound to run out soon. Hammond had ordered everyone to take three hour breaks every twelve hours, ostensibly to sleep. Daniel himself could barely sleep, and every time he saw Sam and Jack, he knew they hadn't slept either.

After the revelations of a few days ago, little progress had been made. Thor and Sam were trying to trace the path Jormungand's spaceship had taken, searching the solar system for energy signatures that had left the same exact type of radiation that had been detected on the kitten… but the phrase 'needle in a haystack' didn't really begin to describe how insurmountable that task was. Thor had also taken to making trips to the edges of Earth's solar system, trying to determine the point where Jormungand had dropped out of hyperspace just beyond where the Asgard began monitoring hyperspace activity.

As he watched his friend go back to her computer to continue going through the neverending streams of data she was receiving from Thor and from the NORAD satellites she'd been using to track possible activity, Jack entered with a sandwich, bottle of water, and blue jell-o. He set them down on the console next to Sam's left elbow and sank wearily into the chair next to her with a quiet greeting Daniel couldn't catch and a very careful, almost scared-looking, kiss to the side of her head. She said something to him Daniel couldn't hear either and took a couple of tiny bites of the sandwich, mostly just to humor him, Daniel could tell.

Janet joined him, touching his back lightly. She watched their friends for a few moments as well, then gestured for Daniel to follow her. Once they were safely out of earshot, Janet said, "You're worried."

"You are too. We all are. You need to get her in the infirmary."

"I have. Medically, she's fine, just exhausted. There's nothing more I can do."

"Well, don't look at me! They don't listen to me when it comes to this stuff!"

"I know they don't. That's why you're coming with me to ask the General to order them to go home for the night tonight."

"I am? I don't remember volunteering for a suicide mission."

"Daniel, please. He's not going to tell them we're the ones who asked."

"They'll still know," Daniel grumbled, nonetheless dutifully following her towards Hammond's office.

xxxxx

Jack and Sam entered their home, feeling out of place, as though they'd been gone for several months and when they came back someone else was living there. Some of it was probably due to all the forensics teams that had been there. While they had cleaned up all they'd displaced, the house still had that not-quite-right feel to it that you got when someone that wasn't you moved your stuff around - even if they put it back "exactly" where they'd found it. But most of it was due to the unnatural stillness and silence of the house - a house that had rarely been still or silent since Jordan was born.

"Well, we're here," Jack said unnecessarily as they took off their jackets. Neither of them had been thrilled to be ordered home for the next twelve hours, but it was better than the alternative they had been given - being sedated in the infirmary. Although a part of Jack couldn't help but think that being drugged for a while would really not be so bad at all… he could forget for a while, and he wouldn't have to be aware of living in a world where his daughter was missing and they didn't know what was happening to her… but he couldn't allow himself the selfish indulgence of forgetting, not even for a second.

Sam, trying to maintain some semblance of normal in the house that now seemed foreign, went over to the answering machine, which was flashing, and pressed Play. "This is Ms. Nelson at Chapman, calling to let you know that Jordan missed school today. Her suspension was over Monday so she should have returned today…" Sam jabbed the "Next" key. "This is Ms. Nelson at Chapman Academy. Jordan was absent again today. If she is sick, our school policy states that a parent must call and notify us before ten o'clock in the morning…" She jabbed the key again. "This is Ms. Nelson again. Please let us know when Jordan will be coming back to school. When a child misses three days in a row, parents are encouraged to collect their children's missed work so that the child will not be too far behind…"

She started to jab the key again, but Jack stopped her, grabbing her wrist lightly. "I'll call. Why don't you go take a shower?" She nodded and headed towards the stairs.

Jack waited until he heard the shower start upstairs to call. It was after school hours, luckily, so he could just leave a message. "This is Jack O'Neill. Jordan will be absent until further notice. She…" He couldn't say it out loud, not to a real person who didn't know anything about their circumstances. It would just make her being missing so… pedestrian. "Please direct any more of your intrusive questions to her emergency contact, Daniel Jackson. He can be reached on his cell phone. Don't bother us anymore. Please."

He hung up, and realized a few seconds later how unlike himself he had probably sounded. That unpleasant task done, he erased all the messages from the machine and went into the kitchen. They should eat… or try to at least. He ordered a pizza on auto-pilot and sat down at the kitchen table.

His eyes settled immediately on the dismembered toaster, which had been pushed to the back of the counter, out of the way, but which Sam hadn't had time to fix before… before they left. Remembering how furious he'd been at his daughter the morning he caught her taking it apart, he felt a rush of guilt, and hoped that wherever she was, she wasn't thinking about any of the times he'd spoken harshly to her.

He scrubbed his face with his hands to shake himself out of it and got up quickly. The whole house reminded him of Jordan. Coming here was a terrible idea. Everywhere he looked he thought about her: the almost full container of cookies she and Sam had made the last night she'd slept in her bed where she belonged, the corner of the fireplace where she scraped her chin learning to walk, the spot on the floor where she threw up the first time she'd ever been really sick, the bottom three steps that she always tried to jump… Jack hurried up the stairs, not wanting to be alone in the house for another second. "Sam?"

She was still in the shower. He sat down on the closed toilet lid, intending to wait for her. Looking at the shower curtain he realized he couldn't see her outline, and pulled back the curtain, concerned. She was sitting down, curled up, arms hugging her knees. He reached over and switched the water to a cooler setting - her skin was pink and the room was steaming up, even though he'd left the bathroom door open.

She watched him and, when he met her eye, tried to explain. "It smells like her everywhere else in the house."

He nodded sadly. "Sam… I'm… I'm sorry." She gave him a slightly puzzled look, but he couldn't bare to confess anymore out loud. He was terrified of the moment when she finally blamed him, out loud, for what had happened, but at the same time, he felt it was so inevitable that he almost wanted to just get it over with. _Almost. _But when it came right down to it, he always chickened out. He wasn't ready to consider the possibility that Jordan was lost for good, so he couldn't risk losing Sam too.

"This wasn't a good idea," he said quickly. "We can go to Janet's. Or Daniel's. Until we can go back to the base."

She thought about that for a few moments, and shook her head. "I just… was overwhelmed. Coming back here. But… as hard as it's going to be to be in the house without her, I… I think I need it too. I feel… closer to her here, you know? Which is painful but wonderful at the same time. I just… it hit me all at once before and it was too much."

He nodded. "Same thing happened to me."

"That why you came running up the stairs like a charging elephant?" she asked, smiling lightly.

"Yeah." He returned the smile and squeezed her knee before getting up with a tired groan. "Save me some hot water, will ya? I feel like I've just boxed ten rounds with Teal'c."

"I will."

He left, but stayed in the bedroom and left the bathroom door open, not quite ready yet to face the rest of the house alone. It was bad enough in here. Jordan had never tried very hard to sleep in her parents' bedroom, which was lucky, because they both agreed that children should sleep in their own beds. On the few occasions she'd come to them or called to them in the night with nightmares, or been sick, one or both of them had stayed in her room with her instead. But over by the window was where her bassinet had been until she was eleven weeks old. There were pictures of her and pictures she'd made on the walls and dresser. In the dresser there were Simpsons pajamas she'd given him last Father's Day, and under the bed was the box that held her baby book, school work, and all the pictures and cards she'd ever given them that weren't displayed elsewhere in the house.

And while she had always slept in her own room, she did like to run in and wake them up in the morning. They'd finally broken her of the habit recently - on weekends, at least. He thought, with a fond smile, that he could chart her growth based on how much of her head he could see when she ran in to wake them up in the morning.

The first time she'd done it she'd been so proud of herself. He and Sam had been terrified that their eighteen month old daughter hand gotten out of her crib and run down the hall to their room - which suddenly seemed dangerously close to the stairs - but Jordan had been so pleased with her feat that there was simply no explaining to her why they weren't as thrilled to see her that morning as she was to see them.

She had run in squealing, "Mommy, Daddy, I am awake! Up! Up!" Jack had woken confused, only to see the very top of a head of wispy blonde curls at the foot of the bed, and a little hand trying to grab hold of the comforter enough to pull herself up. The crib had promptly undergone a severe renovation, to no avail.

By the time he could see her forehead at the foot of the bed, she was in a "big girl" bed and he and Sam were discussing the pros and cons of trying to lock her door at night and just stick with the baby monitor. A Teal'c-tested safety gate at the top of the stairs allayed many of their fears, until he could see eyes at the foot of the bed and Jordan decided that it was a lot of fun to play with toilet paper and shaving cream at five thirty in the morning.

By the time he could see a whole laughing face greeting him in the morning from the foot of the bed, only to scramble up by herself unassisted, she understood enough not to get into anything before they were awake, and was always coming straight to them (saving her 'explorations' until they were all up for the day and had a fairer shot at stopping her, Jack supposed.)

As she continued to grow, she always seemed to wake up with a burning question she just had to have answered right away, and no matter what the question, as Jack woke up to a tapping on the foot from the bottom of the bed, to a familiar, if slight, weight jumping up onto the foot of the bed - and usually his legs, or to a quick scrambling up the middle of the covers followed by an impatient pat on the arm, he was always met with the same look of eager inquisitiveness. She gave new meaning to the phrase "Need to know," whether the question currently on her mind was, "What's for breakfast?" "Can I have a puppy/brother/sister/bicycle?" "How does eyeballs make us see?" to perhaps his all-time favorite: "Where did G.G.'s hair go?"

Sitting at the foot of the bed, he held out his hand, flat, palm down, next to him, marking the spot in mid-air where the top of Jordan's head now reached. If she'd only woken him up that morning… if only he hadn't been so insistent that she let them sleep in on Saturday mornings… he sighed heavily. Sam came out of the bathroom, hair wet and combed, in a towel. "Plenty of hot water left," she said. "That did help, I have to admit."

"Good," he said absently.

Sam threw on some pajamas quickly, watching him in the mirror as she did so. "We should eat," she offered.

"I ordered pizza. Should be here soon. Didn't think either of us would want to cook for two." She nodded and sat down next to him, shoulders touching, and rested her head on his shoulder briefly. "I should have let Thor put that thing in her you guys wanted," Jack said suddenly.

"The bio-monitor to record her vitals so she wouldn't have to go to Janet as much? You were right about that, Jack. It was an invasive device whose only purpose would have been to attempt to soothe my unsootheable paranoia."

"I hope I didn't put it quite like that."

"No, you didn't," she agreed with a small smile.

"And it wasn't paranoia, clearly. You were right."

"We don't know exactly why she was taken yet. And even if she had that in her, I doubt Thor could use it to track her if she's as far away as she seems. He said nobody's even known Jormungand's exact location for a thousand years."

"It could've helped though."

"So could a lot of things," Sam agreed.

He nodded. That was for damn sure, at least. "I think I'll go get in the shower now. If you're… if you don't need anything?"

"Sure. I hope it helps you feel better." She hugged him, kissed his cheek, and got to her feet. While he appreciated her efforts, he couldn't help but think that she was being far too polite to him, considering the circumstances.

Sam wandered downstairs after Jack got in the shower. She too was having trouble turning off memories of Jordan. Hers though, were mainly focused on their last night here. Had there been any signs of danger that Sam had overlooked while her daughter sang and danced, painted her nails, and made cookies? Sam looked down at her hands. Every time she had done so on the base, her eyes filled with tears. The multicolored manicure her daughter had given her was starting to chip, but Sam wasn't about to take it off. This time, she didn't have to worry about Airmen or anybody seeing her cry. She sat down on the couch, grabbed the throw pillow Jordan always used, hugged it to her chest, and cried.

When the doorbell rang, it roused her from the hazy fog of her mind, where she was replaying moments of their night together over and over.

Expecting it to be the pizza delivery, she grabbed the nearest wallet and headed to the door, pulling her robe on over her pajamas as well because there was bound to be a draft when she opened the door. She opened the door just after insistent knocking had replaced the doorbell ringing, and was not met with pizza, but with one familiar seven year old with thick brown hair, Daniel-style glasses, and freckles. The hair was even messier than usual, probably due to the bicycle helmet hanging off the handlebar of his bike.

He grinned up at her with a front tooth missing, held out a fistful of daisies, and said, "Hi Mrs. O'Neill. Can I say hi to Jordan?"

"Alex, what are you…" she glanced back inside at the clock to confirm and turned back to him. "It's almost eleven. Did you ride your bike here by yourself?"

"Yup."

"Does your mother know where you are?" Sam demanded, a little too harshly. It was understandable, under the circumstances. But those were _her _circumstances. The poor kid on the doorstep didn't know anything about that.

She scared Alex, who looked down and mumbled, "No ma'am. But I just… she's been absent all week and stupid Matthew Reed was saying that they got in another fight and he pulverized her and that's why she's not there and I asked the teacher and she told me she was probably just sick or something but I called a bunch of times and I tried our walkie talkies a thousand million times…"

_Well, _Sam thought wryly. _That explains why the emergency walkie talkies in the basement 'mysteriously disappeared' a few months ago. _

"Okay. Calm down, Alex. Come in here. We'd better call your mom and tell her where you are."

"Uh-oh," Alex said, but he followed her inside obediently and waited while Sam placed the call.

"Your mom is coming to get you," she told him as she hung up.

"I'm dead meat," Alex said with a resigned sigh. Then he renewed his efforts to hand Sam the flowers. "Can I at least go see Jordan for a minute? I got her homework, it's in the bag on my bike. And I made her a picture at art yesterday only it's not dry yet so I didn't get to bring it home."

"That was very sweet," Sam said, trying not to cry. "But I'm afraid you can't see Jordan right now, sweetie."

"Is she contagious? I already had chicken pox."

"It's not chicken pox, Alex, she just… we're not sure when she'll be able to go back to school just yet."

"Is she okay?"

"We're all going to do our best to make sure she is."

"But… I don't get it. Is she in the hospital?"

"No, sweetie."

"Is she…"

"She's asleep," Jack said, coming down the stairs briskly. As he'd been drying himself off he'd heard Sam talking, and gone to the top of the stairs to see what was going on. Once he'd figured out the gist of what was happening, he'd decided to put a stop to it. Sam clearly didn't want to lie to the boy but didn't want to tell him the truth either, but Jack didn't have a problem lying to keep Sam from having to answer painful questions. Besides, he hoped his daughter _was _sleeping peacefully wherever she was, anyway. "As you should be. How'd you get here?"

"Rode my bike. Sir." He added 'sir' at the end, remembering that Jordan told him everybody was supposed to call her mom and dad 'ma'am' and 'sir.' Jordan's mom told him a long time ago not to worry about it but Alex didn't see Jordan's dad all that often.

"He was worried about Jo," Sam explained.

"I see that. And your parents are worried about you too, I bet."

"My mom's coming," Alex mumbled, looking miserable.

"Hey, why don't I go put those flowers in a vase for you," Sam suggested.

"Thank you. You think they're the right kind? I know she likes the white ones and the big yellow ones but I didn't know which was best."

"They're perfect," Sam promised, her eyes tearing up involuntarily. She got to her feet quickly and hurried into the kitchen with the flowers, not wanting to cry in front of Alex.

Left alone with Jordan's dad, Alex shifted on his feet by the coffee table while Jack sat down on the couch and waved Alex into a chair. Alex perched on the edge of it and regarded the older man, while Jack did the same to the child.

Jack glanced at his watch once and asked, "Where do you live?" Alex gave his address promptly. Jack raised both eyebrows. The address was in the same neighborhood, so he hadn't had to ride his bike on any streets with a speed limit over 25, but still, it was nearly two miles away. The normalcy of talking to this little boy who knew nothing other than his friend was gone from school suddenly appealed to Jack so strongly that he couldn't stop himself. It would be like pretending nothing was really too wrong with their lives… just for a few minutes.

"We hear a lot about you," he offered. "How old are you again?"

"Seven and three quarters," was the prompt reply.

"Hmmph. You know Jordan's only five."

"And a half," Alex nodded.

"Still. You don't like any girls your own age?"

"Jordan's smartest in our whole grade! She even beat four third graders in the Fifty Nifty States Competition last month!"

"True," Jack agreed reluctantly. "Still. Don't you think it's a little weird hanging out with someone that much younger than you?"

Alex just looked confused for several moments. Finally, he asked, "Aren't you like about thirty years older than Mrs. O'Neill?"

Jack coughed. "_Thirty??? _Not exactly!! I guess I see your point though. Well played. So, you're saying you're considering marrying my daughter? From the way she tells it you're her best friend."

Now Alex was just even more confused than before. "But… isn't Mrs. O'Neill your best friend?"

"Well, yeah, but…" The novelty of the conversation was quickly wearing off as Jack found himself losing an argument to a seven year old… who didn't even have a clue what they were talking about anyway.

The doorbell rang.

"My mom!" Alex squealed, getting to his feet and scuttling into the kitchen before Jack could do more than stand up. Going to the door shaking his head, Jack quickly determined that it was the pizza, not Alex's mom.

Alex froze once he entered the kitchen. Jordan's mom had put his flowers in a vase. It was on the kitchen table in front of her. She was wiping her eyes quickly before she looked at him. She looked really sad. "Mrs. O'Neill? Are you okay?"

She nodded, but it wasn't enough to convince even a seven year old. He crept over to her and put a little hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay. Jordan one time, she fell off the tallest monkey-bars and she got this big cut all up her arm and she didn't even cry. I bet she gets better real fast."

"Thank you," Sam said gratefully, smiling at him. "And thank you for coming to check on Jordan. I wish you hadn't done it so late at night without permission, but I'm glad she has such a good friend." She was struggling not to cry again, because it had just occurred to her that this whole time she had been focusing on how important Jordan was to her and Jack, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the SG-1 family.

Suddenly imagining how this sweet little boy's life would be changed forever if one day he had to be told that his best friend - probably his first and only best friend so far in his life - was gone forever… That one, most horrible outcome that she tried not to think about had the potential to damage so many lives. She was crying again.

Alex looked a little scared, but mostly unsure of what to do. He hesitated a moment and then hugged her tentatively. The idea that her daughter's seven year old friend was trying his best to comfort _her _made her cry even harder for a few moments, but for his sake she struggled to get control of herself, at least until he had gone home. She hugged him back tightly while she forced her breathing to steady and the tears to stop. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I don't mean to worry you. Jordan will… we hope she'll be back to school really soon, okay, Alex?"

"Okay, Mrs. O'Neill. It's okay about the crying and stuff too," he said with a shrug. "I mean, _my _mom one time cried at a McDonald's commercial."

Jack came into the kitchen with the pizza. "At ease, kid, it wasn't your mom," he said, setting the pizza on the counter.

The doorbell rang again. Alex froze. Sam wiped her eyes quickly and got to her feet, pointing him back into the living room. "But that must be. Come on. I'll try to get her to take it easy on you."

"All right," Alex said with a resigned sigh. He waved at Jack as they passed him. "Bye Mr. O'Neill!"

"Yeah, bye, kid." Sam gave him a puzzled look at his grumpy tone, so he added a friendly-sounding, "Alex," to it and gave a way-too-fast wave.

When Sam came back, alone, Jack was eating a piece of pizza mechanically. She sat down next to him and pulled the crust off a piece of pizza and began eating it. "His mom guessed something was wrong. She sent him to the car and asked if we needed anything."

"What'd you tell her?"

"Nothing. I just thanked her. And suggested she not be too hard on Alex - just be grateful that he was safe and sound and going home with her." He gave her a look. "I couldn't help it! I don't care if she knows anyway, her husband is the chaplain at the Air Force Academy. She knows not to pry."

"Okay! I didn't say anything."

"You looked."

"You looked earlier."

"Because you had _that _look."

"Which one?"

"The weird one."

"I have a lot of those. According to Jo. And Daniel. And T. And even you, on occasion…"

"Okay, okay. But you know what I'm talking about. What on earth did you say to that poor little boy? He looked both confused and scared to death when he left, and not just of his mother."

"Hey, he's the one who scared _me!_"

"Oh no," Sam said sympathetically. "What happened?"

"He has inappropriate feelings for our daughter, if you must know."

"He's seven," Sam countered lightly.

"He wants to marry her!!"

Sam stifled a laugh. "Sorry. I just… I find it hard to believe that a seven year old just brought up the subject of marriage with you."

"Well… okay, maybe I'm the one who brought it up. But that's not the point!"

"Jack. He's seven."

"And three quarters," Jack grumbled, swallowing his last bite of pizza.

Sam laughed, then realized as she took a bite of pizza that this was the first normal conversation they'd had in… it seemed like forever. She also couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed. As painful as coming home was, she had to admit, maybe they had needed this.

"…I mean it," Jack was saying. "As soon as we get Jordan back home, we're building a cage or something. Forget aliens. We have much scarier things to worry about. Boys."


	17. Unraveling

Note: I know, it's been unforgiveably long. Kate finished her pieces ages ago, but I have been reluctant to put all of these characters through the rest of this story. We have suffered a horrible loss in our home recently - in November our beloved dog passed away. He was my 'first child' - a decade older than my oldest human child. Needless to say, grieving for our loss, and trying to help five very small children understand their own grief and pain, has necessitated putting a halt to this story. The free time I have had, I simply have not felt like spending on other sad thoughts when I could help it.

The loss is still painful, but no longer so fresh that it prevents me from finishing this. If anything, it now seems to be helping fuel the need to get the rest of this story told, to those loyal readers who are still wondering what will happen to little Jordan. Thank you all so much for your patience and interest in this story.

Italicized segments are flashbacks.

Ch 17

Jordan wasn't sure exactly, but it felt like she'd been left alone in her "room" for a very long time. It had given her lots of time to rest, but it was getting harder and harder to rest because of all the things going through her mind. The only good thing about all the funny numbers, symbols, and abstract concepts swirling around in her brain was that trying to ignore them all and keep them all squashed down so Jormungand wouldn't see them next time he hooked her up to his machine was that it took so much effort and concentration that she hadn't even had time to feel scared in a long time.

She found that thinking very very hard about something she knew very very well was working best. Currently she was singing her favorite song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang under her breath, to keep her ears and voice busy, and playing with the three-dimensional pyramid puzzle to keep her eyes and hands busy. The puzzle was losing its effectiveness though. She was now putting it together as though she were on auto-pilot, reaching for the next necessary piece with her left hand even as she finished putting one in place with her right. But, as fast as she was getting at putting it together, she did still get a significant thrill out of getting to her feet with it all in one piece and giving it a good swift kick, sending the pieces flying all around the room. It was also pretty fun to "bomb" it with the constellation-ball.

Still, she thought as she reached for the last piece and set it in place. Maybe next time she would try to do it with her eyes closed or something.

Just as she had sent the pieces scattering everywhere with a kick she was sure her Uncle Teal'c would have been very proud of, the door opened. Her smile vanished as she looked at Jormungand apprehensively. "Quis iam?" Jordan asked nervously. Jormungand narrowed his eyes and, for a moment, Jordan thought he looked confused.

Then it passed and he said something Jordan didn't understand. It just sounded like jibberish. She had heard Thor talk to other Asgard in his own language before, and it didn't sound like that… just… weird.

Apparently whatever he was saying he got tired of waiting for her to respond to, because he came all the way into the room, grabbed her arm roughly and said, "Come on."

"What now?" Jordan repeated.

"I have made adjustments to the machine to encourage you to divulge your knowledge more quickly. Perhaps if I share some of my own knowledge with you, you will be more likely to do the same."

Jordan snorted and said, "Fat chance." The hand on her arm tightened in response.

"It may interest you to know, Miss O'Neill, that we are nearing my homeworld. And I assure you that once we arrive, I will be far, far less patient with you than I have been thus far."

"Quare?"

Jormungand made a frustrated sound and then said, "Do not ask questions."

They had reached the room with the machine that showed her thoughts. Jordan decided, as Jormungand tried to help her up onto the slab and she shrugged off his help stubbornly and climbed up herself, that she would call it "Brain TV." Giving it a funny, clever name made it seem a little bit less scary and made her feel a little bit braver.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as Jormungand began hooking the various wires up to her. She started trying to do the kel-no-reem techniques Uncle Teal'c had taught her, but he always told her to think of nothing. With this machine, she had to kind of do the opposite. She had to think so hard about one thing that nothing else could get in.

"Let us see what is on your mind today, Jordan," Jormungand said as he pressed the nose-hair trimmer thingy to the metal disc still stuck on her. When he activated the machine it was like cold water splashing on the inside of her brain, jolting the thoughts she was trying to focus on.

But, she remembered, the good thing about cold water was you had to jump in all the way at once. Her daddy taught her that at the cabin. The pond up there was really cold and you could only go swimming there about two months late in the summer. Even then it was way chillier than a swimming pool. If you just stuck your toes in and tried to get used to it slow it took forever and you would chicken out – like Uncle Daniel when she wanted him to race her in the pond last summer. But if you jumped all the way in at once, it was only bad for a second and then it was over and you could do whatever you wanted in the water without feeling cold anymore.

Since she believed that, and was thinking hard about it, it was easier to resist the first impulses the machine was sending through her brain. But she felt Jormungand turn up the dial, and it got harder. She struggled, and pretended she was swimming in the water kicking as hard as she could to stay afloat. And that kept working – sort of.

She kept her mind from going to those weird secrets she was only beginning to make any sense of, that she knew she had to keep away from her thoughts. But Jormungand got to see on the screen what was in her head – he saw her swimming in the pond at the lake.

_Her mom was treading water beside her, smiling at her. "Good job, Jordan! Now relax a little, you don't have to kick quite so hard, you'll tire yourself out too fast." Jordan nodded and slowed down a little. Someone on the dock shrieked like they were being killed, and Jordan turned in the water just in time to see Uncle Daniel make a big splash in the water. Uncle Teal'c was on the edge of the dock, smiling, with his arms crossed, clearly having just thrown Daniel in the water. Hearing a chuckle nearby, she looked to her right, where the little rowboat was bobbing in place. Her daddy had fallen asleep fishing in it and she and her mom had decided to go swimming instead while he napped. But Uncle Daniel screaming must have woken him. _

"_Hi Daddy, look at me!" she called, waving at him. _

_His face appeared over the edge of the boat and he smiled at her, then squinted at her more closely and gave a worried, "Jo! Where are your floaties!? Where's your life jacket?!" _

_She giggled. "We're swimming, Daddy. Life jackets are only when you don't wanna go in the water by __**accident**__. Not when you wanna go in on purpose!" _

"_Is that so?" her dad asked, looking to her mom. _

_Her mom laughed mildly. "It's a pond, Jack, not the Pacific. No undertow, and she's swimming just as well here as she did at the pool back home where she had all those lessons." _

"_Still…" her dad grumbled. "You be careful," he insisted, pointing at Jordan with the fishing net. _

"_Yes, sir," Jordan sighed loudly, turning her attention back to the dock, where Daniel was climbing out of the water dripping wet. "Uncle Teal'c!! Throw me too!" Jordan called, swimming off towards them. _

_She could hear her mom swimming beside her the whole way to the dock, just to be safe. _

"Well, isn't that lovely," Jormungand said sarcastically, with enough of a jolt to the machine that she was jerked out of the memory back to the present. "Your thoughts, I see, still dwell with your family, at your precious cabin. Coincidentally, I was going to share some cabin memories with you today as well."

"W-what?" Jordan asked, confused.

Jormungand took the wires that connected the display screen to her off for the moment. She was still connected to another machine whose purpose she didn't know – it seemed kind of like the machines Aunt Janet used to "monitor" people in the infirmary. It showed their heart beeps and all that stuff. Jormungand hooked the wires from the Brain TV up to one of his little egg-shaped devices, and to her surprise, a picture of the pond and the dock she had just been thinking about filled up the screen.

There weren't any toys on the dock though, just two old chairs. She looked at them hard. She thought maybe they were the old chairs they used to have there – before Uncle Teal'c had broken one and her dad had left the other one out one night and it stormed and got all mangled and blown into the pond. So did that mean this was really their cabin, a long time ago, or something? How could he have gotten a memory she didn't have?

"What is this?" she demanded.

"This was stolen from the Asgard collective database. This was recorded by your precious Thor."

"Not uh," Jordan muttered defiantly.

"Perhaps I should let the pictures speak for themselves," he said mildly. He must've pressed the play button or the alien version of it or whatever, because it went off pause.

It was dark outside in the video, Jordan thought. There was a light on the dock but the rest of the picture had a weird fake-light look to it, like whoever recorded it had added the light later so you could see it. She figured Thor's video camera would probably be cool enough to do that.

There was splashing in the water, just like in her own memory, but the splashing was hiding whoever it was who was splashing.

She watched that for a few moments and was about to ask what she was supposed to see that was the big deal when her dad came running out of the cabin, yelling her mom's at-work name and looking really mad before diving off the dock…

_He quickly swam out to her and grabbed some part of her underwater; he was pretty sure it was her leg. She yelped and started kicking him under water and swatting at him. "Carter! Carter, relax, it's me!" he said, finally managing to grab both her wrists._

"_Colonel, what are you doing out here?" she demanded._

"_Me! What the hell are you doing out here, I thought you were drowning or being attacked by a flounder or something!"_

"_Attacked by a flounder?" she asked sceptically._

"_Oh shut up. Come on, let's continue this conversation inside."_

"_I wasn't… done."_

"_You are now," he said firmly, shoving her in the direction of the dock._

_She climbed up out of the water, grabbed her towel, and dried off her face, then wrapped it around her tightly, shoved her feet in her shoes, picked up her lantern, and headed back to the cabin. Jack scrambled after her, as she had the light and he had no towel and was freezing his ass off._

"_You're WELCOME!" he called in an irritated voice._

_Sam stalked into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Jack went to his room, slamming his door as well. He then realized he still had no towel. He poked his head out of his room cautiously and hurried into the bathroom, looking for a towel. There weren't any. He groaned as he remembered they'd done laundry again that day. And she'd volunteered to fold it._

_Well, he could freeze to death, use his freshly laundered sheets to dry himself off, getting them dirty with pond water, or he could go ask a very angry and therefore very dangerous Sam for a towel. He hugged his arms and hopped up and down in one spot as he contemplated his options._

_Finally, teeth chattering, he went to her door and banged on it loudly. "I need a towel!" The door opened, he caught a quick flash of his 2IC, and then was hit in the face with a towel. The door slammed shut again and he yelled, "THANK YOU!" as he stomped back to his room._

_Back in his room, door slammed with a loud, satisfying noise once again, he stripped out of his wet sleeping clothes and dried himself off, then pulled on a new pair of sweatpants and an undershirt. He towel dried his hair with much more force than was required, muttering under his breath._

"You see, then, that everything has not always been fun and games at your beloved cabin, nor with your beloved parents," Jormungand said quietly as he stopped it.

"Where'd you get that?" Jordan demanded.

"I told you already. From Thor. He does not know I have acquired a copy, of course."

"Copy of WHAT? Why would Thor…"

"Surely you know," Jormungand said, sounding shocked and surprised, even scandalized. It was such a fake voice it made Jordan sick. "Surely Mommy and Daddy haven't kept such big dark secrets from their precious little girl. Don't you know the nature of your origin?"

"Yeah, I do!" Jordan insisted. "I know all about where babies come from!"

"Normal, average, human children, perhaps. You, Jordan O'Neill, are many things. Normal, you are not. In fact, you owe your existence to Thor."

"Huh?"

"Oh, my dear little girl. Surely you knew, or perhaps at least suspected? Jordan… your parents didn't want you. You were an experiment, Jordan. An Asgard experiment, and a failed one at that."

Jordan shook her head firmly. "You're a liar! My mommy and daddy love me! They did so want me! I'm not an experiment!"

"Then ask yourself, Miss O'Neill," Jormungand continued. He was talking in such a calm, almost gentle voice, that even though it was fake, seemed so terrible coming from him that she wanted to scream and just run away. But she knew that wouldn't do her any good. "Ask yourself," he repeated, "Why a little girl, one little girl on a planet of billions, has always been such a curiosity to such an advanced race of alien as the Asgard? Why are you the only child permitted to know your planet's biggest secret – the existence of your Stargate program? Why does Thor return to your planet every year near your birthday to run tests on you?"

"Because… I might get sick if he doesn't because… I'm special."

"Special," Jormungand echoed. "Have you always been satisfied with such a ridiculously simple explanation?"

Jordan didn't know how to answer his questions. Her life didn't seem as abnormal to her as he was trying to make it sound, because it was all she had ever known, so of course it was normal to _her. _She felt truly scared for the first time in hours. It must have shown on the readouts of his machines, because he turned to look at it and then seemed pleased.

"You're a liar," Jordan repeated stubbornly. "My mommy and daddy love me and they're looking for me right now and when they find me they are going to kick your stupid alien ass!"

She was prepared for some sort of painful punishment for the outburst, but it didn't come. He continued fiddling with the stone recorder thing as though she hadn't said anything. That, she thought, was maybe worse.

"Your far-fetched predictions aside, perhaps I can offer you proof that I am not a liar. I admit, I should not have started where I did. I merely appreciated the symmetry in beginning there, seeing where your own thoughts were dwelling. I shall take you back to the beginning of these recordings. Bear in mind, this is after Thor presented his proposal to your parents and General Hammond – that is, that the Asgard wished for Major Carter – your mother, at the time, of course – and Colonel O'Neill to procreate. To have a child, in other words, whose DNA could be tested in the hopes that it might solve the Asgard's cellular degeneration problem that resulted from years of cloning."

It didn't occur to Jordan that a few days ago there was a lot of that that she wouldn't have understood.

"Your parents disliked the idea intensely. So, Thor devised a plan to force them to comply with his request. He isolated your parents at the cabin until they were so desperate to return to their lives that they gave in."

"Thor would never do that," Jordan said firmly. "And my mommy and daddy liked each other a loooooong time waaaaay before I was born. _Everybody _says so. Uncle Danny even says sometimes it used to drive him crazy."

"As I am sure they have led you to believe. However, I show you the truth, Jordan. Here is proof undeniable."

He switched the machine on again. Jordan didn't want to look – but she couldn't help it.

She saw her daddy, looking a little younger. He was sleeping in her parent's bedroom in the cabin, but it had a different blanket on the bed than the one she knew. She saw him wake up, look around in confusion for a few seconds, then heard her mom yell from somewhere else "THOR!!!" Her dad jumped out of bed and hurried out of the room. The picture shifted seamlessly, like it had in the other video, to another room in the cabin as her dad entered it saying, "Easy Carter…"

_"Sir? What the hell is going on?" _

_"I don't know. I was as surprised as you are when I woke up a few seconds ago. Okay, maybe not __as __surprised. This __is__ my cabin, after all. Only I don't know how I got here... or how you did... or why we're here..."_

_"Yeah, well, I think we can both take a stab at answering all of those questions, sir. Apparently, Thor wasn't happy with the President's decision and decided to take matters into his own clammy little hands!" Sam yelled the last half of that statement around the room…_

_"Okay, let's... go see if there's any... explanations lying around conveniently," Jack tried._

_A quick inspection of Jack's cabin yielded several surprises, but no answers. The first surprise was that they had both had the majority of their wardrobes beamed in with them, as well as several personal items like Sam's laptop and Jack's Simpsons DVDs. The kitchen was fully stocked with a wide variety of food, and Jack distinctly remembered leaving it completely bare last time he had left._

_"So, if things are different, are you sure this is even __really __your cabin?" Sam asked suddenly after he had told her about all the small differences he had noticed._

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Well, maybe Thor somehow created this... fabrication or illusion of your cabin or something. He got it really close but not right," Sam suggested._

_"I don't know, it seems pretty real to me..." Without explaining himself, he walked over to a picture of a speckled trout and slid it aside, revealing a hidden wall safe. He opened it, scanned its contents, and said, "It would have to be a __very __thorough fabrication, but I guess it's possible."_

_"I mean, he went to the trouble to beam us here, with a lot of supplies, which would indicate he intends to make us stay here for a while, so it makes sense that it's not really your cabin, right? I mean, if it were, we could just leave."_

_"Ah..." Jack glanced out the window. "He appears not to have beamed my truck up here. And the nearest town is a good twenty mile hike. So it's __possible __to walk out of here, it just wouldn't be a whole lot of fun."_

_"Well, this is just ridiculous," Sam said, walking out the front door to see for herself that they were without transportation. "I mean, what did he think, he'd drop us off in the middle of nowhere and we'd just decide that despite the President's decision we're going to give the Asgard what they want and jump each other?"_

_Jack coughed and said, "Uh, no, I don't think he really thinks we'd do that. And, yes, the past two days have been nothing __but __ridiculous. We're obviously missing something here... and you were right before, when you were... yelling... he's got to be monitoring this..."_

_They both started yelling for him to show himself. As Jack's voice got hoarse he realized it was a good thing he didn't have any neighbors anyway, as a call down to the police station that "The middle-aged Colonel and some woman are on his front lawn yelling for somebody called 'Thor' at the top of their lungs" probably wouldn't be very well-received, even if he __was __poker buddies with the local sheriff._

_Sam had walked the length of his long driveway and was suddenly knocked back roughly, landing hard on her bum on the gravel._

_"Are you okay, Carter?" he called as she got to her feet and dusted herself off._

_"Fine, sir... I think I was right about this not really being your cabin... there's some sort of force shield here, keeping us in..."_

_As he approached her, he watched as she carefully felt along the shield's invisible edge._

_"Well, now we know for sure he's monitoring this... THOR! GET YOUR SKINNY GRAY ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" he yelled at the top of his lungs._

_Surprisingly, it worked. Thor materialized in front of him. Even though Jack knew it was a hologram, he still lunged for him, choking the little guy Homer-style. Sam laughed, despite herself, and realized it was the first time she'd done so since she'd woken up on Thor's ship the day before._

_"O'Neill, you cannot damage me," Thor explained calmly._

_"Yet," Jack stipulated._

_"Thor, why did you bring us here? Where are we, for that matter?" Sam asked._

_"You are at O'Neill's cabin, Major Carter. He has spoken of it often, and of his desire for you to accompany him here."_

_"All right, we know this isn't really my cabin. For one thing, it's way too clean, for another, I don't remember installing a force field around it last time I was here."_

_"Nevertheless, it __is __your cabin, O'Neill. I have merely assisted in ensuring your isolation by adding the force shield."_

_"But __why __would you do this, Thor?" Sam asked, exasperated. "The President said 'no' to your plan. I'm really, truly sorry about the Asgard cloning problems, but honestly, I don't even think Colonel O'Neill and I are the answer to it anyway..."_

_"Perhaps," Thor conceded. "Nevertheless, that is not the issue. You have been brought here for several reasons. First, because the Asgard High Council is willing to offer Earth more for your cooperation and it was decided that the odds of achieving a favorable outcome are more likely if neither of you are available for consultation in the matter."_

_"Oh that's real fair!" Jack roared._

_"This was not my decision, O'Neill. It was I who chose the location for your isolation, remembering how fond you are of your cabin, in the hope that the familiar surroundings would make you more comfortable with the situation. The rest of the High Council had suggested... another location."_

_"I'm almost afraid to ask..." Sam said cautiously._

_"In an effort to understand your culture better, we have familiarized ourselves with many important parts of your history. Due to the nature of what we are asking you to do, the High Council had selected a planet whose description matches closely with what you call 'The Garden of Eden.' Their plan was to leave you there, alone, with nothing to amuse yourselves with but each other. I however, convinced them this was a much better location."_

_"Well, thanks for that," Jack grumbled._

_Sam wondered if 'Garden of Eden' meant 'naked,' as well. Probably. The Asgard weren't too bothered with clothes, after all._

_"Yeah, thanks a lot," she said gratefully to Thor. "Of course, you could just beam us back home, or to the SGC…" she added hopefully._

_He tilted his head at her and said, "You will remain here until we are satisfied."_

_"Satisfied! With what?" she demanded._

_"Until the Council and your President have reached an agreement, you have decided to accept our proposal on your own terms without their approval, or I am satisfied that we have not done any permanent or lasting damage to your relationship," he added._

_"Woa, woa, run that last one by me again, Thor..." Jack said._

_"Yeah, that sounds really subjective," Sam agreed._

_"You are both my 'friends.' I do not wish for there to be conflict between you, or unresolved issues of any sort. Much less because of something we have done. Think of this as an indefinite vacation. Do not worry about work. If you are needed at the SGC, I will of course take you back immediately."_

_"And nobody there is supposed to care that we're gone?" Sam demanded angrily._

_"That has been covered," Thor said cryptically, disappearing in his beam of light._

_"Aw, crap, no!" Jack yelled up at the sky. "Thor, come back down here, we're not done buddy!"_

_"I think he's gone, sir," Sam said with a heavy sigh._

_"Great," Jack grumbled._

_They walked back up to his cabin, not talking._

Jordan squinched her eyes shut, tears leaking out the corners at an embarrassing rate. "Turn it off!" she cried, shaking her head as though hoping to shake out what she'd just seen: her parents own voices, own faces, telling her that they, all of them, were the liars, not Jormungand. She couldn't take it. It was all too overwhelming, all of a sudden. Kicking her legs where she lay, immobilized by all the electrical equipment she was hooked up to from the chest up, she screamed, "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

He did turn it off, but she barely noticed in the midst of her fit. She also didn't notice right away when he surreptitiously reconnected her to the display and eagerly went back to his console to make sure he was recording all the things that were appearing. They weren't clear – the child's grief and pain was causing random images to flash so rapidly that he couldn't catalog them all at once. But in between those flashes there were other flashes: images of star charts and equations, complicated renderings of the fundamental building blocks of life rearranging themselves over and over… he would slow down the images later and try to begin to decipher them all.

His plan was working.


	18. Making up and moving forward

Ch 18

Alex was gone, and so was the pizza. Jack had eaten most of it methodically, straight out of the box, just for something to do that didn't involve looking around the house, where everything reminded him of his missing little girl. Sam had picked all the toppings off of a couple of pieces, for some reason, but at least she had eaten the crust. The rest looked way too greasy. They had both tried to keep up the relatively light conversation they'd been having when the pizza arrived, but it was getting harder and harder to sustain. They were both trying to keep it up for the other, though.

"Jordan would hate it if we let her cookies go stale," Sam said after throwing the pizza box away, bringing over the container of cookies to the table.

"I had some when I got home that night," Jack said. "They're great." He put half a cookie in his mouth and tried not to picture his daughter's tiny little hands molding it and putting it on the tray. Of course, the second he tried not to think about it, it was all he could think of. He winced, tears in his eyes, forced himself to swallow, and put the rest of the cookie down. "Take them back to the base with us," he suggested in a hoarse voice, wiping his eyes. "The guilt trip alone should get everyone there who's getting tired to redouble their efforts."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, wiping her own eyes. She had been lost in her own thoughts of making those cookies with her daughter, finding little flour-handprints on her shirt. It seemed like a million years ago.

Standing next to his chair, she put her arms around Jack's shoulders, resting her cheek against the top of his head. He hugged her back, shutting his eyes tight. "Maybe we should've opted to be knocked out in the infirmary instead of this," Jack suggested.

"It would've been easier," Sam agreed. "But what if something happened while we were drugged? It would slow things down for hours."

"True," he agreed. He chuckled unexpectedly. It seemed out of place, so Sam asked, "What?"

"Just thinking about when you were pregnant and you randomly decided one night that it would be the catastrophe of the century if you didn't know how to cook."

"Oh yeah," Sam remembered. "Well, good thing I was planning ahead, because Jordan loves to make cookies. And cupcakes. And…"

"S'mores," Jack said with a grin, latching onto the memories to try and cheer both of them up. That was one thing _he'd _been the first to show Jordan, on their first family camping trip. Although the s'mores hadn't been as successful when they'd tried to recreate the process in the microwave instead of over an open flame…

"Guess we'd better go try to get some sleep," Sam finally said, turning to leave the kitchen.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "I'm just, uh, gonna clean up a little down here first. And check back in with the base, just to make sure. You go on up."

She paused and almost said something, then changed her mind, nodded, and left quietly.

xxxxx

Jordan woke up still feeling exhausted. Her head hurt. She was thirsty. Well, that was understandable – she had screamed and cried for hours, barely noticing as Jormungand had finally disconnected her from the machines and taken her back to her room. Kicking her feet and beating her fists into the hard cold floor, she had cried herself into exhaustion and fallen into a fitful sleep. When she woke up, it all came flooding back into her memory at once, along with a lot of other extra things she knew she wasn't supposed to know. But now that the shock of what she had seen had had time to wear off a little, she had some more thinking to do.

She believed what she had seen was real. But Uncle Daniel was always telling her there was more than one side to every story. Like Snape in Harry Potter! Jordan thought. He was so mean in the first book, but her Uncle Daniel had always told her maybe he had his own sad story too, and maybe he wasn't really all that bad… and while Jordan hadn't finished the fifth book with Uncle Daniel before she got kidnapped, she was starting to suspect that her Uncle Daniel was right about Snape. And he was right about lots of stuff in general. One time he took her to the park, and afterwards, while they ate ice cream, he had asked her what she had seen, and what she had thought about what she had seen. Then he told her what he had seen, and thought, and he had seen_ all _different stuff from her, even though they had been in the same place at the same time! So maybe, Jordan reasoned hopefully, her mom and dad would be able to explain what Jormungand had shown her in a way that would make sense to her.

Besides, if she really thought about it, somebody could probably show her mom and dad a video of her having a fit or a temper tantrum (which she was proud to say she hadn't done since she was just a _little _girl) and if they just saw that all alone, they might think she wasn't very fond of them either. But her mom and dad knew better. They knew she loved them even when she was yelling at them… and she knew they loved her even when they were punishing her. But that was a little bit different from the main question still troubling her – even if they did love her now, had they really not wanted her in the first place?

Maybe it didn't matter so much. She was here, and they loved her, and she loved them. Whatever else Jormungand said or did or showed her, she knew that part was true. And she also thought they really needed to hurry up and find her, because she was feeling worse and worse, and it was getting harder and harder to think straight and keep all the stuff running around the edges of her thoughts off Jormungand's Brain TV.

xxxxx

Jack was putting off going to bed. Sam felt less comfortable everywhere else in the house, which were more "Jordan-areas," so she went to bed shortly after making herself eat a couple of pieces of pizza, even though she doubted she'd be sleeping much unless she took one of those pills Janet gave her. She had left Jack in the kitchen, where he'd insisted he'd be up after he cleaned up. Since they'd eaten the pizza right out of the box, cleaning up should have consisted of putting the leftovers in the fridge. She'd heard him in Jordan's room later and checked – he was cleaning that up too, and it was clear he didn't want to be interrupted. Now, she was getting worried. It wasn't just that he was trying to stay busy so he wouldn't think about Jordan – he wouldn't have gone near her room if that had been the case. He was specifically avoiding either her, or their bedroom. Or both. She finally gave up being patient and got up out of bed quickly – too quickly. After a brief dizzy spell, in which she sat back down on the edge of the bed quickly to keep from falling, the pizza suddenly revolted against her. She made it to the bathroom just in time.

Jack appeared while she was brushing her teeth tiredly. "You threw up again?"

"It's nothing," she said quickly around her toothbrush.

He waited for her to finish brushing her teeth, giving her a very worried look in the mirror the whole time.

"Really," she repeated, wiping her mouth on a towel. "There was probably just too much grease on the pizza or something. I'm fine."

"Maybe we should call Janet…"

"No way. If she makes us come back in she'll just sedate us in the infirmary like she wanted all along."

"Yeah, good point. Maybe we should…"

"Try to get some sleep," Sam finished firmly.

"Okay, just let me go finish…"

"Jack."

"What?"

"Why are you avoiding the bedroom?" she demanded suddenly, turning around to look him in the face, instead of just in the mirror.

He shrugged and looked away. "I'm just not tired."

She sighed. "Fine, don't tell me what's wrong." Feeling lousy, after having just thrown up, she added grumpily, "Par for the course" as she squeezed past him in the doorway.

Jack took a deep breath. He supposed now was as good a time as any. He followed her into the bedroom – she was getting back under the covers. He sat down next to her and rubbed her arm. "Why don't you just say it. We're not going to be able to stay here all night unless we just get this over with."

She sat up against her pillows, looking at him with a puzzled expression. "Get what over with?"

"You don't have to keep being so nice about it. It's just us now."

"Jack… what the hell are you talking about?" she asked bluntly.

"It's my fault," he said, looking down at his hands. "You blame me for Jordan being kidnapped, and you're right. I blame myself too."

"There's no 'too' here, Jack. Why would you think… why would I blame you?"

"Because it's my fault. I know that. And I'm sorry. You have to know that. I am so, so sorry, Sam, and I promise I'll fix it, okay. I'll… we'll get Jordan back and then everything will be good again."

"Jack. This wasn't your fault, why would you think it is? And why would you think I'd blame you?" Sam asked, confused. It wasn't often that they had a conversation in which she was the one who was completely and genuinely lost, but this was one of the few.

"I'm the one who kept you in bed that morning, Sam!" Jack finally blurted out. "We could've both been up and been downstairs with Jordan if I hadn't insisted…"

"I was there too, you know! You didn't exactly _insist_ anything by yourself! And we don't even know for sure if it would have made any difference whether we'd been right beside her or not. She could have still been beamed up right out of our arms; there's no way to know! Our making love that morning was nobody's _fault, _Jack. Is that… is that why you've been avoiding me so much? You thought I was mad at you for all of this?"

He nodded.

"How could you even think that?" Now she was getting mad that he'd thought so little of her to begin with – her sympathy for his tendency to take the blame for everything notwithstanding.

"Because it happened before, okay?" Jack snapped. Her eyes widened in the beginnings of realization as he continued. "It happened before, okay? Charlie… Charlie died and it… Sarah and I both blamed me for it and we couldn't get over it. And I thought nothing could be more painful than going through all of that once but this… it's my worst nightmare, Sam. We… I got a second chance to have a family and everything has always been so much better than… I just… I never _thought _I'd get through losing my first family. But I did. And I _know _I can't lose you and Jordan. I just can't do it, Sam."

She hugged him, crying into his shoulder. He was crying too, hugging her as tightly as he dared. "You… idiot," she finally said, wiping her eyes and smiling at him.

"What?"

"You are an idiot, Jack. But I love you so much. You are _not _going to lose _us, _Jack. Even if… even if we don't find Jordan, or she's…" Sam couldn't make herself say the word _dead _– wouldn't even let herself think it to its conclusion. "… we'll still be a family. I didn't marry you because of Jordan and I'm not going to leave you because of Jordan either. You _know _that. We would be a devastated family but I would need you more than ever."

Looking at the sincerity in her teary eyes, he believed her, and suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He collapsed next to her on the bed, pulling her to him as quickly as his position shifted.

They were both crying, but now it was with relief.

"I don't think I've ever been happier to be wrong about something in my life," Jack admitted.

"I'm relieved there's something around here we can actually fix," Sam said around a yawn.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, pulling up the covers. "Think you can sleep now for a little while?"

"Yeah, I think so." She leaned up, intending to kiss him goodnight, turn over, and go to sleep. But as soon as their lips met, she could feel all the worry and subsequent relief he'd just been through. And she couldn't help but feel a little responsible for not connecting the dots sooner between what they were going through now and what he'd been through before. They let the relief wash over them and immediately felt much stronger. That made the permanently encroaching hopelessness of the situation back off a bit, and made finding their daughter once again a question of when, not if.

Jack felt the change too, and was glad his wife was still kissing him, because if she had wanted him to verbalize how he felt now into something brilliant or insightful – or even adequate – she would have been sorely disappointed. But nonverbal communication… that had always been one of their specialties.

xxxxx

Sam woke with a start, feeling like she had been asleep way longer than she had intended to allow herself. She was chilly too. She glanced at the clock as she got up and grabbed her robe; it was early, just past four in the morning. Since she was alone in the bedroom and the bathroom door was open with the light off, she went looking for Jack. She found him in the first place she looked. He was standing in the doorway of Jordan's bedroom, just staring at the bed she should have been asleep in. He scooted aside when he heard her and wrapped an arm around her. "I have an idea," he said by way of explanation as to what he was doing.

"What?" she asked.

"I think we've overlooked a possible lead on where that alien might be taking Jordan."

Sam racked her brain, trying to think of a way to trace the route he'd taken that they weren't already trying – or hadn't already ruled out. She couldn't think of anything. It wasn't surprising – that was pretty much all she'd been thinking of since Thor had told them who'd taken Jordan.

"Where do the Asgard keep their prisoners?" Jack asked.

"I don't know, we'd have to ask Thor. Why…" she trailed off, picking up on his train of thought. "Loki? You think he might know where Jormungand is?"

"Didn't Daniel say he was his father?"

"Well, sort of… according to Earth mythology, but, Jack, the Asgard have been cloning for thousands of years. I don't even know if the familial relationships of Earth mythology were ever based in fact…"

"But what if they were?" Jack interrupted. "Even if it was a long time ago. Sam, just think about it. Would Jordan still be your daughter in thousands and thousands of years, even if you'd both had your consciousnesses switched a million times?"

"Yes, of course! You know I'll always love Jordan, and that I could never forget her."

"Exactly! That's what I was thinking about! And I just thought… if Loki ever really was related to Jormungand – especially if he was his father – then, no matter what both of them have been doing for the last thousand years, Loki might know something.He might have at least tried to find out where he's been all this time, or _something. _I just think it's worth a shot is all…"

"So do I!" Sam insisted quickly. "It's a brilliant idea, Jack!"

"Really?"

"Yeah." She started tugging his hand, pulling him back down the hall. "Come on, let's get dressed. We need to go ask Thor for a ride!"


	19. Touch Down

A/N: I know, it's been unforgiveably long. I have been trying to get the entire story finished so that I can post the rest in quick succession. I am close. Given today's unpleasant news about Stargate Atlantis, I allowed myself to be pursuaded to post another chapter today. For those of you still interested in this story, I apologize once again for the lengthy delays this story has endured. I will have the entire thing finished quickly, and once I do I will post it all, holding nothing in reserve. Thank you all, again.

Ch 19

When Jack and Sam entered the base in the early morning hours, they were met by a scowling Hammond. "I ordered you to…" he began.

"Jack had an idea," Sam interrupted. Hammond looked at her in surprise, surprised by both the content of her statement and by the fact that she had interrupted him. Jack was known for relaxed standards of formality, even before he had been promoted to General and they had taken over joint control of the SGC, but Sam was just as well known for adhering to them strictly. "I'm sorry, sir," she said reflexively after realizing what she had done.

"Forget it, Colonel. What's going on?"

"We need to talk to Thor," they both said quickly.

"Very well. I'll contact him; he is on his ship in orbit at the moment. Do you want to call Jackson and Teal'c?"

"Yes."

"I'll get them," Sam offered.

"We'll meet you in the briefing room," Hammond said, gesturing for Jack to follow him.

Fifteen minutes later, the briefing room was full. Daniel was sucking down coffee like oxygen, his eyes red behind his glasses. Teal'c looked like there was nothing out of the ordinary about an impromptu early morning meeting. Jack and Sam both seemed unable to sit down, but at least Sam was able to stand still, whereas Jack was sort of bouncing on the balls of his feet waiting to get started. Thor was sitting on the conference room table itself, legs dangling, not caring, for the moment, that it looked somewhat undignified, but preferring the view it gave him to the table-level view he normally got when he sat in the human-sized chairs in the room. Hammond sat down and waved at Sam and Jack to start.

"Thor, where is Loki?" Jack asked without preamble.

"Being held captive on Jordana. Why?"

"We need to talk to him," Sam said.

"Why?"

"Jormungand must have got updated information from somewhere… somewhere in the Asgard community. Unless there's other people that you think might be suspects… he seems like the best place to start looking for a security leak. I mean, if Jormungand was his son…" Sam started to explain.

"The Asgard have long ceased to distinguish familial relationships among ourselves…" Thor stated.

"I know. I know. But what if… some of you haven't?" Jack interrupted. "Look, it's a place to start. Someone leaked him information. Someone might also know where he is."

"If he knows, we will get it out of him," Teal'c contributed plainly.

Thor gave a small sigh and said, "I doubt this will prove productive, but if you wish it, O'Neill, I will take you to Loki."

xxxxx

Jordan woke with a start, feeling feverish, and wondering what had woken her. She realized that they had stopped. The ship stopped! Her initial pleasure quickly turned to dismay as she remembered what Jormungand had been threatening her with: that he wasn't going to be "nice" to her anymore once they got to his planet. Since she really didn't think he'd been nice to her at all so far, this was a very scary thought. She took a deep breath and tried to be brave.

Sure enough, in a few moments, the door opened. Jormungand gestured for him to come with her, and said something she didn't understand. She was having more and more trouble understanding him when he spoke, and didn't know if he maybe forgot she didn't know his language, or if he was doing it on purpose. He seemed annoyed when she didn't understand, so she didn't know why he would be doing it on purpose.

Still, she scrambled to follow him before he could come and grab her arm, hating the way his scaly fingers felt. She wanted to get a glimpse of where they were – maybe it was another pit stop, after all – from the ship, but he steered her away from the bridge and took her out a door instead. She stepped out, squinting in the bright, natural light – the first she'd seen in a long time. On the one hand, she was happy to see green trees and foliage, and breathe fresh air. On the other hand, she was terrified, because they weren't alone anymore.

Jormungand hadn't been exaggerating his threats. He had lots of aliens here on his planet… and judging by the fact that they all knelt down in front of Jormungand, he was the boss of them all. They were very strange and scary aliens too, Jordan noticed, as Jormungand steered her through the crowd, which parted on both sides to let them pass. They were all _sort of _like Jormungand, mainly in the black and scaly department, but many of them were all stooped over, some had misshapen arms and legs, with bulges like muscles but in all the wrong places, or one limb noticeably longer or smaller than the other. She thought that they sort of looked like they'd been drawn by kids in her class, or else maybe made out of play-dough. They were alien-ish, and in turn vaguely human-ish in the extreme. But they just looked… unnatural. Even by her five year-old, super-imaginative standards.

Maybe Jormungand had called them ahead of time, or maybe he could talk to them in their minds, or something, but the aliens all seemed to be scurrying to do his bidding, running into the ship to unload various supplies, as a smaller group of five started escorting them down a path. Jordan kept her eyes peeled for a Stargate and was extremely disappointed not to see one on the entire trip, which was turning into a very long walk for her little legs and bare feet. Trying to avoid rocks and sticks in the road, when Jormungand was demanding she walk directly in front of him, was very difficult. Jormungand finally lost her patience with her slowness, screamed, "Enough!" and barked an order at one of his minions. The minion – who was himself larger than Jormangand, stepped forward and picked her up, dumping her unceremoniously over one shoulder. Jordan, grumpily resigned to her fate, took to studying the differences in the aliens. They were all naked, and, like Thor, Jormungand, and all the other non-humanish aliens she'd ever met, they didn't seem to notice or care that they were naked. The one carrying her was as tall as her dad, the tallest alien she had ever seen before – well, apart from Uncle Teal'c, but he didn't really count as an alien to Jordan. He just wasn't from Earth, was all. The alien carrying her was as tall as her dad and nearly as big too… bigger in some areas. He had a big hump on one shoulder and walked kind of stooped because, as she could see from her position, his spine was very curved. One of his ears wasn't developed, and it looked painful, oozing and crusted. She squirmed away from it from her position on his normal-shaped shoulder. She wondered if the other aliens had names, or even spoke. She hadn't heard any of them say anything.

As they stopped, she squirmed to see in front of her. The alien carrying her tolerated it, and even put her down. She smiled and said, "Thank you" to him. He stared at her like SHE was the weird one! Jordan shrugged and turned her attention to the sight in front of her. It was a big building. It looked like a big rusty old combination of old ships and warehouses, or something. It was kind of junky looking, she thought. But big. Very big. As he took her inside, she realized the interior was kind of like a maze. And she thought a lot of it went underground.

He took her to a lab. The building was old, but all this equipment looked shiny and new. He hooked her up to a bunch of machines, strapped into place vertically on a clear vertical table thing, or something. He switched on all the machines, which started taking readings. "We will get some basic readings now, and once my minions have brought in the rest of the equipment, we will resume our sessions."

Without saying anything else to her, he left, leaving the big guy who had carried her to guard her.

xxxxx

Sam realized idly, as they exited Thor's ship and found themselves greeted by a waist-high sea of grey aliens identical to Thor in every external respect except demeanor, that it was somewhat ironic that her first physical visit to the planet named after her daughter was in a desperate attempt to find her.

"Wow. That's a lot of Asgards," Jack mumbled next to her.

The Asgard all watched them stoically, as they followed Thor down a path in the crowd, down the landing pad and into the building where Loki was being held.

"What's with Munchkinland?" Jack mumbled to Daniel, on his other side.

"I expect they're trying to express sympathy," Daniel answered quietly, smiling at a few of the passing identical faces.

"That is my interpretation as well," Teal'c concurred.

Sam forced herself to look straight ahead, knowing that if she looked into anyone's eyes she would start crying. Not that she hadn't been crying plenty lately, but she really tried to minimize the tears when she was in uniform. It tended to destroy the image a bit.

They went inside the building. Daniel, she knew, was taking in the architecture, because he automatically did so whenever he was in an interesting place, but his usual enthusiasm was dampened completely by the seriousness of their mission. He looked only with his eyes for once and kept his mouth shut. Sam was pleased he was acting this way on his own, because if someone else had had to say something to him about it, Jack would have been pissed. Jack and Daniel were notorious for pushing each other's buttons in highly stressful situations. But now they were walking along side by side, both totally focused on the ultimate goal of this mission: to find out from Loki where Jormungand was.

They were taken through a large facility and finally to a row of small rooms – the Asgard equivalent of cells. Sam couldn't help but notice, as they were shown into one, that they were minimalistic but still seemed rather nicer than Earth's prison facilities.

The room was bare and sparse, as most Asgard facilities tended to be, but it was a comfortable temperature and looked clean and comfortable by Asgard standards. It even had…

"A TV?" Jack squawked beside her. "He gets to sit on his little butt all day and watch TV?"

"I assure you it is not as pleasant as it may sound," Loki said, rising from his little "bed," finally acknowledging their presence.

"The Asgard mind cannot withstand long periods of solitude, completely devoid of any mental stimulation," Thor explained to all of them. "We provide Loki with enough external stimuli to keep his mind intact, nothing more. The device is very much like your Earth televisions, O'Neill. He cannot do anything but observe, I assure you. "

"Wanna bet," Jack muttered darkly.

Loki crossed the small room and came to a stop in front of all of them. "SG-1. I have not been allowed any visitors. What does this change signify?" he asked, directing the question to Thor.

"O'Neill wishes to speak with you," was all Thor would say, stepping to the side to let everyone else take the lead.

Standing shoulder to shoulder (to shoulder to shoulder), all of SG-1 towered over the little grey alien. "I'd hate to waste too much of your obviously valuable time," Jack started sarcastically.

Daniel interrupted, but nicely. "Loki. We came to ask you about Jormungand."

The Asgard's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, at the name. "I know no more of Jormungand than the rest of the Asgard. He has not been heard from in thousands of years. He is presumed dead, having no body into which to transfer his consciousness or access to one."

"Well, we all know what they say about presuming," Jack growled. Nobody was brave enough to point out that he should have meant 'assuming.'

Daniel continued pressing forward. "We understand your reasons behind wishing the other Asgard to believe that you, like them, don't know where he is. But we have reason to believe otherwise, and we need to know where he is. If Thor agrees that no additional restrictions will be placed upon you here, no matter what information you give us, I'm sure you'd be willing to…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack interrupted. "You can't offer the guy immunity, Daniel; he helped his kid take _my _kid."

Loki wasn't so good at covering his surprised reaction this time. "Of what do you speak?" he asked Daniel, while looking to Thor for verification that they spoke the truth.

Thor nodded slightly. Loki turned his attention back to Daniel, who said, "Colonel Carter and General O'Neill's daughter, Jordan, was kidnapped by Jormungand several days ago. He left a specific calling card so that we would know it was him. We need to know why he wants her and where he took her."

"I cannot help you," Loki stated plainly.

"You will," Teal'c said firmly.

"I cannot," Loki repeated.

"Listen," Daniel said gently. "I know your feelings towards him must be… mixed. To say the least. He allowed himself to be polluted by a foul and evil being, and now the two are inextricably linked. But a part of him is still your son. I can only imagine how much sadness, pity, and fear you must feel towards him."

"You are wrong," Loki interrupted. "The Asgard do not have feelings as your race does, Dr. Jackson. Of sadness, pity, and fear, we do not understand. Not anymore."

"What about love?" Sam interrupted.

They all turned to look at her. "I understand that the Asgard aren't like us anymore. But at one point, you were. That's the whole point of all of this, isn't it? So if you were once enough like us to love your own children, then I cannot believe that thousands of years have eroded and destroyed that feeling too."

"What would you know of such things?" Loki demanded.

"She knows because it's true!" Jack yelled impatiently.

Daniel had only heard that tone twice before. The first time, it had caused Teal'c to turn against Apophis. The second time, he had been yelling at an alien archaeologist who had caught a large portion of the galaxy in a time loop that he knew how the man felt, because he had lost his son. When he used that tone, people listened, and believed him.

Now that he had the alien's attention, Jack continued. "Because we love our daughter and thousands of years wouldn't be enough to change that. Nothing would. We know it, because it's true. We know it. We just… _know _it."

He had run out of arguments. But it had been enough.

Loki took a deep breath and padded back over to his little cot. Sitting down on the edge of it, he barely reached mid-thigh. Shoulders slumped, he said resignedly, "I will tell you what I know."

xxxxx


	20. Answers

A/N: See? I really am trying to finish as quickly as possible. I didn't like updating for the first time in months and leaving off in the middle of a conversation, so I wanted to at least give you the conversation ASAP.

Also, thank you very much to those of you who wrote to me in the long interim period, wishing me well.

Ch 20

SG-1 and Thor crowded in front of Loki, waiting for him to start speaking. When he finally did, it was to defend himself. "Jormungand always made his own choices…"

Jack waved a hand through the air like he was swatting flies. "Skip that part. Kids don't listen. We got it. Get to the part that matters to _us._"

"Jormungand is a prisoner," Loki stated. "A prisoner of his own choices."

When he stopped, there was a long pause, before Jack prodded him along. "Aaaand…"

"He is, as you said, Dr. Jackson, inextricably linked with the Goa'uld who he once allowed to invade his body and mind. They are now all linked together; body and both minds. It was years before Jormungand realized what this would inevitably mean. The Goa'uld are long-lived, but not immortal, at least not without artificial aid. And Jormungand, in exile, has no ready means with which to extend his own life."

"Not a lot of sarcophagi floating in the outer regions of the Asgard galaxy?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"No," Loki answered succinctly. "Jormungand began taking steps to remedy the situation. Many, many years ago, he raided an old, abandoned planet for rudimentary, outdated, and malfunctioning equipment. And a very old ship."

"The theft of Shaldonna," Thor stated.

Loki nodded. "The rest of the Asgard were unable to determine who was responsible. It was not a high priority problem, since the Replicators had become a serious threat and the equipment taken was inoperable and grossly outdated. But I knew that it must be Jormungand. It was an abandoned Asgard safe haven; only Asgard would have knowledge of its location and how to access the planet, or begin to use whatever was salvaged. And I knew, then, what he must be doing."

"How?" Daniel asked.

Before he could answer, Sam asked, "What sort of equipment was taken?"

"Very old versions of our cloning equipment."

"Oh," Daniel said.

Sam nodded, her suspicions confirmed.

"Spell it out for the rest of us," Jack put in.

"The equipment would have been of no use to any Asgard, or anyone without an understanding of Asgard technology. That left only one suspect. Jormungand. And he, above anyone else, would be able to find a use for such technology."

"He tried to get it working again," Sam concluded. "To get his own cloning program up and running, so he could transfer his body himself when it did start to wear out."

"That was my assessment," Loki said.

"Even if he could get the equipment back to its original working condition, the clones produced from that model had serious flaws," Thor stated. "And that is without taking into consideration the fact that Jormungand's blending with the Goa'uld must have rendered it impossible to transfer his consciousness to a new body with our old, or even our currently existing technologies."

"Two problems he has no doubt been seeking to overcome for many years," Loki agreed. "But it gave him a remote chance of success, which he did not have before, existing alone and in exile."

"So that's what he's been up to. But what does that have to do with Jordan?" Jack asked, after a few moments of quiet where everyone digested the information.

"Jormungand," Loki began again. "Was finally forced to conclude that he was unlikely to be successful with his efforts. He then contacted me approximately seven of your years ago when I was doing research alone on my ship. He confirmed my suspicions about his activity and demanded my assistance."

"You didn't give it, surely, Loki," Thor said, shocked.

"I didn't have a choice," Loki said miserably. "When I said 'contacted…' it was not entirely the right choice of word. He got within range of my ship and hacked into my ship's log. He had stolen much of my data before I was aware there was a problem. Only in trying to rid the system of his virus did I discover his identity."

"How?" Sam asked.

"This isn't Hacker's Anonymous," Jack interrupted, waving the technicality away.

Loki answered her, however briefly. "He deduced my remote access passwords as one who shares part of myself only could do."

"Are you saying the Asgard have genetic memory?" Sam asked, shocked.

"Not in the way you are thinking, as the Goa'uld do, Colonel Carter," Thor assured her. "It is more like… how shall I put this. You have met versions of yourself from alternate realities?"

"Yes," they all answered.

"And while you did not share any past experiences or specific memories, you thought, reasoned, and felt, in the same ways, did you not?"

"Yes," Sam answered, remembering.

"It is similar to that," Thor explained. "Loki and Jormungand share DNA. Not 100 percent, as your alternate selves did, but enough to matter. What Loki says is logical."

"O…kay," Jack said. "Take your word on that one, little buddy."

"How much of your research did he get?" Sam asked Loki, trying to get back on track.

"Ultimately, 65 percent of my research on the Asgard cloning problem and possible solutions. But he had access to my computer's database, Colonel Carter. I am afraid he had access to all of the information about my planned attempt to clone O'Neill."

"Well, that didn't work anyway," Daniel said.

"But he also learned of the plan from which I derived _my _plan," Loki stated, turning to stare pointedly at Thor.

Thor narrowed his eyes for a moment, then sighed and stated, "I have brought this about."

"What? Thor? You? You… you love Jordan, you wouldn't…" Jack started, now completely confused.

"Not intentionally, I assure you. But Loki is implying that his plan was derived from my plan to have you and Colonel Carter create a child."

"I didn't want to wait that long, so I got to you first to clone you," Loki said.

Thor sighed. "My plan was in development for years. I did not put it forth out of respect for your human characteristics and feelings. I wanted to give you time to do so on your own…"

"Yeah, then you gave us a shove forward when we weren't moving fast enough to suit your fancy. We all remember the story," Jack interrupted.

"The thought of implementing a time dilation device did not occur to me," Loki said. "That was an ingenious addition."

"Thank you," Thor said tersely.

"Regardless," Daniel interrupted. "What it boils down to is that Jormungand got a heads up that Jack, and possibly a child of Jack and Sam's, might be useful in solving the cloning problems of the Asgard."

Sam cleared her throat. "What about the ATA-gene factor?" she asked. "Was that in your computers too?"

"Yes," Thor said. "I am sorry. I do not know what else to say." He looked defeated.

Sam looked at both of them and took a long, deep breath. Blaming them wouldn't solve anything. "I know it wasn't intentional. Just… help us now. Why would he take Jordan? Why not just find a way to keep checking on your progress remotely? Why risk exposure by taking Jordan, and letting Thor _know _who'd taken her?"

"I do not know," Loki said.

Daniel snapped his fingers suddenly and got that manic look in his eyes. "What else is in your database?"

"Countless volumes of information…" Thor began.

"Does it have a repository of the Ancients in it?" he asked.

Everyone stared at him like he was crazy. Then, he saw the moment Sam picked up his train of thought. "Is that possible?" she asked.

"It would explain why he needed her, if he had access to all the genetic memory of the Goa'uld, and a recent update on the Asgard news network," Daniel continued.

"Hey!" Jack interrupted.

They both looked at him. Sam explained. "Daniel's right. This whole time we've had no idea why he wanted her, since he has the memory of the Goa'uld. If he gave up trying to figure out a way to clone himself using Asgard technology, where does that leave him? Ancient technology," she concluded, feeling more energized than ever at the prospect of a real, solid lead to go on.

"But that thing doesn't care if you have the gene, does it? It just rejected T, we don't know if it would have rejected you two, too."

"I thought that it might, though," Sam said. "Much later, of course, when we knew about the gene and its importance. Daniel and I talked about the possibility that it, like lots of other Ancient technology, might also only respond to the gene. After all, that first time, we'd all been walking around in there but it wasn't until _you _stepped into the circle that it activated. It didn't seem to matter much either way, but… I had speculated as much."

"You are correct," Thor said. "It was a simple enough security feature the Ancients sought to include in the design."

"Thor, _does _the database Loki had access to include the information contained in the Ancient repositories?" Daniel asked eagerly.

"It does not," Thor stated. "Such information is highly guarded, and was placed in such 'repositiories,' as you call them, upon the agreement of the four races. None of the four would betray the sanctity of our agreement by carrying such information around on ships, where it could easily be intercepted."

"See?" Daniel demanded, pointing at Thor. "That's what he wanted next. He needed someone to help him get the knowledge of the Ancients. Someone with the gene. Thor! You said you heard rumors of what part of space you thought he might be locating. Are any of them near a repository, or are there any repositories on the way from Earth to there?"

Thor thought for a moment, but before he could speak, Loki said, "Yes. There are."

"Loki is correct," Thor said. "And there is a Stargate there, O'Neill."

The rest of them looked happy and hopeful for the first time in what felt like forever at the news. But Jack, far from looking optimistic, now looked worse than ever. He nodded an assent to all the silent plans they were all now making quickly in their heads and turned to leave the cell, frowning to himself and looking down.

Sam motioned for all of them to stay behind a minute and went after him. She caught him up in the hall and grabbed his wrist. "Jack, what's wrong? This is fantastic news…"

His face was as worried, scared, serious, and angry as she'd ever seen it as he answered. "I've had that head-sucker thing done to me, if you recall. Forgive me for being more worried than ever at the thought of someone making Jordan go through that."

xxxxx

Jordan didn't really know what was happening any more. She was quite certain she was missing large chunks of her own life. She had long periods where she was flashing through a bunch of memories, mixed in with things she never knew she knew before. But she wasn't sure if she was asleep and dreaming, or awake, during these periods.

She was quite scared whenever this thought occurred to her, because she had lost all sense of time. She knew she must have been sleeping, and eating, and going to the bathroom, sometimes, but she was having trouble distinguishing current events from memories, and from nightmares.

Sometimes she would think about her family, and hope they were still looking for her.

But sometimes she would see things – her mom and dad playing with new children, happy, not missing her at all… Uncle Teal'c playing with about fifty puppies, all different kinds, just laughing and laughing and having a blast without her, when he KNEW how much she loved puppies… Uncle Danny dressed up as Harry Potter and getting to visit a castle, making friends with bunches of other little kids all dressed up as Hogwarts students…

She cried sometimes, she knew that. And she slept some, she was sure, but it was hard. She got the sense that she would feel much better if she were able to sleep more, but that the repeated examinations of her brain Jormungand was doing was interfering with her sleep. And when she did sleep, she didn't really rest.

xxxxx


	21. Plans in Motion

Ch 21

"I bet this is it," Jack said confidently as the wormhole behind them disengaged.

"You have said that at every planet we have searched," Teal'c, next to him, said.

"Yeah and each time the odds are more in my favor. This has to be it!"

Since it was the last planet on their short list, Sam could only silently hope that he was right, or the ensuing set-back would be devastating. She once again pulled out her yellow "doohickey" and turned it on, scanning the area for energy readings.

"Let me guess," Jack said. "We go down the one road – to use the term loosely – that goes from the Stargate into the woods?"

"Yes," Sam confirmed.

"All right. Here we go again."

He started off, but Daniel called, "Hang on!"

Sam, Jack, and Teal'c all turned to look at him. He had ditched his pack and was crouched near the DHD, re-tying his boot.

Jack thrummed his fingers on the butt of his gun impatiently while they waited.

Teal'c suddenly said, "Daniel Jackson, do not move a muscle."

He approached Daniel slowly, but his intensity was still scary. Daniel had taken his order to the letter, and remained frozen until Teal'c pulled Daniel aside and pointed to the ground. Not two inches from where Daniel's foot had been, they saw it.

A little red "J."

They all hurried over to the DHD, crouching down to look at it. "It can't be a coincidence," Daniel said. "She must have left this here, like a breadcrumb."

"What _is _it?" Jack asked.

"It's… food!" Sam exclaimed suddenly, getting it. "Thor, on his ship, once, he offered me food. It was little brightly colored block-looking things, just like this. Look, she nibbled it…"

She choked up at the sight, and at the thought of her daughter, scared and alone, but still smart and clever and brave enough to leave them a sign that she'd been there. Jack squeezed her shoulder and stood up after several moments of staring at the first visible sign that their daughter might still be okay that they'd had since she went missing. "We still need to check out the head-sucker," he said hoarsely.

Sam nodded, wiping her eyes, as Daniel took out his camera and took a few pictures of the J before bagging it to bring back with them. After sealing the bag, he passed it to Sam wordlessly, sensing that she would want to carry it. She gave him a grateful smile and touched the little nibbled shapes through the plastic. "She's always been such a picky eater," she said quietly. "She must be starving to death."

"She'll eat enough, when she's hungry enough," Daniel said. "Believe me, I didn't like Abydonian cuisine so much at first but… well, it's remarkable what you can develop a taste for when there's nothing else available."

Sam nodded absently and put the bag it in her pocket.

"We're getting close, Sam," he said quietly as they all started moving back onto the path. "We'll find her."

"I just wish I knew more about how exactly he thought Jordan could help him," she admitted to Daniel as they fell into step behind Teal'c and Jack. "It… it would just help me to know what he was doing to her. At least, I think it would. Maybe it wouldn't." She shuddered at the thought, wondering whether it would be worse to be filled with a thousand racing thoughts of all the tortures her daughter could be going through, or know exactly what was happening to her.

Daniel hugged her shoulders loosely and said encouragingly, "We'll find out soon."

As they continued in silence, he found his own thoughts dwelling on it too. Sam was right – while Loki had given them a lot of helpful information, he hadn't given them anything concrete about what specifically Jormungand might be doing with Jordan, or why it was necessary to take her instead of Jack, or even someone else with the gene, someone who wasn't connected to the resources of the SGC.

It had to be something special about Jordan, Daniel was sure of it. But what did she have that Jack didn't? They both had the gene… but Jordan also had a lot of Sam in her too.

She was so young. Maybe Jormungand just thought he could intimidate her, whereas he wouldn't have a chance with Jack. She was so little, Daniel reflected sadly. Something nagged at the back of his mind as the thought occurred to him. There was something more to that. But he'd have to think about it later, because as his mind wandered, his feet had wandered behind the rest of the team, all the way to the repository.

"Everyone stay the heck away from the walls," Jack ordered as they entered the empty chamber inside, his order bringing Daniel back to the present and the immediate task at hand.

"I think this is it," Sam said, studying the readout on her device. She crossed the room to get closer to the wall with the biggest reading.

Jack, rolling his eyes as he did so, hurried after her, grabbing her jacket and pulling her back from the wall right as the head-sucker thing he was oh-so-fond of opened up in the wall, about two and a half feet from her face.

"I'm plenty far back," she said absently, still looking at the yellow device in her hands. "This one is seriously depleted. The levels are rising slowly again. This is exactly what Thor told us to look for in the energy readings. This one was definitely used recently." She smiled at all of them, a big smile that was identical to Jordan's – just without baby teeth. "She really was here."

"And he really made her stick her head in that thing," Jack added darkly after a moment. "All right, come on, let's get back to the base and figure out where to go from here."

It was clear, now that they had confirmation that they were on the right track, that Jack wasn't going to waste a second. Daniel hurried along with them back to the gate, his musings temporarily forgotten.

xxxxx

"There are fourteen planets in the system in which we believe Jormungand resides with sustainable atmospheres. All of them were once home to at least some of the Asgard population," Thor told them all, after everyone had been briefed on the success of SG-1's trip to the planet, and future plans were under discussion.

"Fourteen?" Jack groaned. "All right, we start at the end of the list this time, though."

"It's not that easy this time," Sam said quietly.

He looked at her and shook his head. "Whatever you're going to say about this being impossible, don't."

"I'm not going to say it's impossible!" she insisted. "Just that we can't casually show up at each planet like we did before. Once we're in the system, Jormungand will undoubtedly be able to detect our presence. We need to know the right planet going into it if we're going to have any kind of shot at reaching the planet before he has a chance to escape. _With _Jordan."

"Colonel Carter is correct," Thor said.

"Isn't she always?" Jack countered. "All right, so how do we narrow fourteen down to one without going near the planets?"

Everybody in the room looked at everybody else. Nobody had any ideas.

When no one else spoke up, Teal'c said, "Perhaps Loki could be of more assistance."

"I think he told us all he knew, T," Jack said, clearly disappointed with his own words.

"Maybe… maybe not," Daniel said slowly as an idea began to form in his mind. "Thor, that place where Loki was kept… was that a prison?"

"It was not. The Asgard, as we have evolved, have absolved ourselves for the need for such a facility. We are all working towards the same goal. There are no selfish interests to compete against each other. There is no crime among the Asgard, and hasn't been for many years. Loki's residence was set up for him after his apprehension, out of necessity."

"But did you ever, in your history, have need of a prison?"

"Many hundreds of years ago," Thor said stiffly, as though it was a history he didn't like to talk about.

"Then I think Loki _did _help us," Daniel said, sounding awed at his own conclusions. "Remember the first thing he said to us about it? _Jormungand lives in a prison… of his own making…_ Thor! TELL me one of the planets on that list used to be an Asgard prison."

Thor checked his list briefly and nodded. "You are correct Daniel Jackson."

"Do you really think he could have been being that literal?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Well, the Asgard aren't really known for their convoluted metaphors, are they?" Daniel countered. "But maybe, despite wanting to help us, and despite fearing and hating what his son has become… maybe he couldn't bring himself to completely betray him outright. I think this is it."

He walked up to the display screen and tapped the planet Thor had indicated for emphasis.

"Daniel, if you're wrong, we might blow the only advantage we're going to have going into this fight. If he sees us coming and has time to move Jordan or worse…" Jack started.

"I know," Daniel said quietly.

"Thor, do you know what sort of technology he has down there?" Sam asked.

"Yes. Provided he got it working again."

"But with thousands of years he could have modified a lot of it himself, couldn't he?"

"Yes, but with limited resources it is still possible to somewhat accurately predict what he would be able to accomplish."

"I don't like it when the best you can give us is 'somewhat accurately,'" Jack put in.

"Nor do I, O'Neill," Thor stated.

"Still... it's something," Sam said. "Thor… do you think he can detect a cloaked Asgard ship?"

"I do," he said. "He is likely to have all the available protection possible around himself. As much as he could salvage. This most likely includes defensive shields around his ship and possibly even the compound in which he is residing, in addition to scanners to detect the presence of ships that enter the atmosphere, at a minimum, and the solar system, at worst."

"But could he detect a cloaked Goa'uld ship?" Sam asked.

"I understand your reasoning, Colonel Carter," Thor said, nodding slightly.

"Well, that makes two of you," Jack mumbled.

"The energy signatures are totally different. His equipment, if it's all cobbled together and out of date, would have to be configured to two totally separate frequencies to detect both types of ships. So the chances are good that he wouldn't overtax his systems that way – he would focus all his resources on what he considers the only real possible threat to him – other Asgard. There aren't Goa'uld in Asgard space, and they have no reason to come after him. Any potential threat would reasonably be presumed to come from the Asgard themselves," Sam explained.

"But Jacob's Al'kesh, if he manages to bring one back, won't get us that far," Daniel contributed.

"So we haul it close in Thor's ship, take it down to the planet, disable his sensors, and Thor can come in as backup," Jack said, the idea forming clearly in his mind now.

"He won't have rings though, on the planet," Sam said. "We'll have to land on the planet or use the escape pods. Which basically means use the escape pods."

"Why?" Hammond, who had been letting the discussion unfold on its own, asked.

"Because to come through the atmosphere intact would mean we would probably need shields, which means no cloak, which means his regular sensors would pick us up, energy signature or not," Sam answered. "The only alternative would be a hyperspace jump inside the atmosphere and an immediate cloak, which still leaves us exposed for a fraction of a second and means that he could also detect the opening of a hyperspace window, energy signature or not, which he's almost certainly monitoring."

"I see," Hammond said.

"So we take as many pods as we can down to the planet, infiltrate the facility, disable sensors for Dad and everyone on the Al'kesh to come in and for Thor to swoop in as backup-slash-big-guns… we find Jordan and Thor beams us all out," Jack said.

"Jormungand has most likely made it impossible to lock onto targets within his facility for beaming purposes," Thor said. "It was one of the most basic security protocols of the prison facility, and would not require much ingenuity to maintain."

"So we knock out those systems too," Jack shrugged. "Or we get clear of the facility where you can lock onto us. Look, I know the plan still has a few details to be ironed out but I'm guessing it's going to take a while to get there. Can't we iron them out on the way?"

Everyone looked to everyone else for a reason why that wouldn't work. Nobody had a good reason, and they were all eager to get under way. "I'll send a message to Jacob to let him know we're ready to go as soon as he can get his hands on an Al'kesh," Hammond said, getting to his feet to indicate the meeting was over. "In the meantime, assemble the teams you'll need. Dismissed."

Everyone scuttled to get to work, excited.

xxxxx

Within eighteen hours, the plan was in motion. Jacob had returned with an Al'kesh that Jack wasn't entirely sure had been taken with the Tok'ra coucil's permission – or knowledge. But Jack certainly wasn't going to complain about it. The Al'kesh had been flown into Thor's ship's hangar, his cargo holds filled with various medical and food supplies, weapons, and a huge variety of equipment Sam had requested.

Every off-world team had voluntarily requested permission to go on the mission. Jack had even caught the gate technician, Walter, pleading with Hammond to be allowed to go along, and Siler had actually tried to sneak aboard the Al'kesh with a "borrowed" spare uniform from an SG-8 member.

Jack and Sam were touched by the show of support from the SGC, but had to agree with Hammond and the President; that it was simply impractical for _everyone _to go. For one, Thor claimed his life support system wouldn't be able to sustain them all. Additionally, a large portion of their plan relied on remaining undetected, which tended to be easier with fewer people.

Everyone compromised when Thor gave General Hammond a long range communication device so that if backup were needed from the SGC, it could be provided as quickly as possible.

So it was that SG-1, Thor, and Jacob Carter prepared to rescue Jordan with SG-3, SG-5, and SG-9 as backup. SG-1 was gearing up in their private locker room when Janet arrived and pulled Daniel out to speak to him privately. "Daniel, don't you think you should say something to Sam?" she whispered sharply, nails digging into his forearm. She'd grabbed him out of the locker room before he could put on a shirt.

Counting himself lucky he at least had pants on in the busy corridor, he bent over slightly to whisper back, "You're the doctor, you say something!"

"She's been avoiding me," Janet snapped. "And you're supposed to be the great orator; you talk to her."

"Look… how dangerous do you think this is for her, really? I mean… as much as she wants to find Jordan, I can't believe she would put her baby in danger to do it."

"But maybe she's convincing herself there isn't any danger… I don't know, Daniel, but I just think it needs to be said."

"I tried," Daniel admitted. "Asked her if she was sure she should be leading one of the teams on the planet rather than staying with Thor. She chucked a coffee mug at my head. She's been with Jack way too long," he added glumly. "Or maybe it's the hormones."

Janet rolled her eyes, sensing she had hit a dead end, and said firmly, "All right then, I'm coming with you."

Twenty minutes later, they were all joining Thor and Jacob on Thor's ship. Hammond had seemed too blind-sided by Fraiser's last minute demand to accompany SG-1 to say no. The fact that SG-1 seemed eager to have her along didn't help either.

And Hammond had quickly realized that if Jordan needed medical attention that Thor couldn't provide, and he had been the one who prevented Fraiser from being there, that he would never have been able to forgive himself. He wished them all luck as they left, and had never meant it more in his life.

xxxxx

The longer she stayed there, on the planet with Jormungand, in the machine, the harder and harder it was getting for her to think about herself, and her parents, and her friends… already she knew she had forgotten someone very important. She knew she had a friend her own age who was her very best friend… and she thought he was a boy… but she couldn't remember his name or his face. She had a vague memory of the sensation of being on swings when she tried hard to remember him, but that was all. Straining her brain, she remembered her Grandpa Jacob and G.G. – Grandpa George. And she could remember Cassie, and Auntie Janet, Uncle Danny, Uncle Teal'c, and Mommy and Daddy most of all… but it was getting harder and harder to remember things that had really happened with them. She remembered what they looked like, their names; she remembered feelings they evoked as she tried hard to grasp at different specific memories… but the specifics were fading fast.

Replacing them all was a growing desire to _leave_.

xxxxx


	22. On the Move

Ch 22

"Jello for your thoughts," Jack offered, easing himself down onto the floor next to Sam, who was sitting in their quarters on Thor's ship with her back against the wall. He offered her the cup of blue jello and plastic spoon he'd brought as he got comfortable – as comfortable as it was possible to be on Thor's ship.

"Out of pennies?" she asked absently in response, having been lost in thought.

"Figured you valued Jello more than pennies, and your thoughts tend to be pretty valuable."

She looked at him sideways, biting her lip, and said, "I don't like the plan."

He groaned. This was why it sucked trying to be your wife's CO. It normally wasn't a problem, because they normally avoided the situation entirely; she normally reported to Hammond exclusively in non-research situations. "What? Why?"

"I want to be on the team that finds her," she said firmly.

He sighed. He had been waiting for this to happen. "I know," he said quietly. "I know you want to bust into the room where she's being held and scoop her up and never let her go. But what if while you're doing that, none of us can get out? You need to be disabling the beaming-blocker thing, Sam. As it is, it'll be a minor miracle if the Delta team gets the other sensors disabled without your help."

"I've walked them through the process a hundred times on Thor's simulator…"

"Still. A lot of this is on the fly stuff since nobody knows exactly how he's cobbled his systems together. It's going to need you. That is a far more important part of Jordan's rescue than who happens to find her first."

"Then how come you and Teal'c get to do that part?" she couldn't help but ask a bit sharply. What he said made sense, until you got to that part.

"Us and another two-man team who will be searching solely for her. It's just as likely one of them will find her. But yes, I can't deny that I hope we're the ones who do. For the same reasons you wish it could be you. But also because I know that Teal'c and I will do whatever it takes to get her out of there safely. Which I know you would do too. And so would Daniel. But it's not my fault nobody else here is as smart as you." He nudged her shoulder with his and tried to coax a smile out of her. When she managed a small one, he turned serious again and said, "I'll bring her back to you, Sam, I promise."

"I know. I just… I just miss her."

"Me too." He wrapped an arm around her and shifted so she could put her head on his shoulder. After doing so, she nodded to her open backpack, which was near them on the floor. He snagged it by a strap and dragged it over.

She reached inside, felt around for a moment, and pulled out Jordan's Homer Simpson doll. She turned it to face him and smiled, even though her eyes filled with tears at the sight of the doll. "She's never slept without it, before this."

"She'll be glad to see it," Jack said, touching the plush doll reflexively. He took it from her gently and nodded to the Jello. "Eat. Or I'll have Thor make you a delicious Asgard party-mix of blocks."

Laughing a little, she peeled back the lid and said, "That reminds me. Have you told Janet anything?"

"About how you've exhausted yourself so much you're dizzy a lot and how you keep on forgetting to eat and drinking so much coffee that when you do eat you make yourself nauseas?" he asked, feeling that he probably sounded like a broken record on the subject. But he knew he was just as bad – the symptoms just weren't as externally obvious on him, was all.

"Yes, that."

"No. She just knows what she sees. Why?"

"She keeps watching me way too closely to be normal, and asking me if I've taken my vitamins."

"Oh. Are you?"

"Yeah, it was the only way to keep her off my back about food and sleep, was to take the vitamins she was pushing on me and shut up about it!"

"Hmm. Maybe I should try that."

"She's recruited Daniel as an extra pair of eyes too, I think," Sam said, glowering into her Jello cup as she spooned out a scoop. At the sight of it wriggling on her spoon, she winced and handed the whole thing back to him. "It's too wobbly," she said, clutching her stomach and looking faintly green.

Jack set it aside and said, "Guess even Thor's inertial dampeners are no match for Jello."

xxxxx

It was late at "night" on Thor's ship – or the night cycle they had designated at the beginning of their trip, at any rate. They were all supposed to be sound asleep, was the main point. But Daniel was in what they had converted into a commissary of sorts, frowning into a cup of coffee. They were only thirty hours away from their first destination, when Thor's ship would stop and a smaller group of them would continue in the Al'kesh.

"Well, looks like coffee's not the only thing percolating in here," Jack called from the entrance, his voice interrupting the silence.

Daniel looked up and, seeing both Jack and Sam there, got up to go to the coffee pot. It was ostensibly for a refill for himself, but he discreetly poured Sam a cup of decaf with his back to them both. He brought both cups back to the table and slid Sam's over to her.

"Gee thanks," Jack said sarcastically, going over to the pot himself for his own cup.

"Couldn't carry more," Daniel defended, looking at Sam. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just can't sleep. It seems like each hour takes longer to get through than the one before it," she admitted, turning to smile at Teal'c as he entered, looking for all the world as though the four of them had planned this meeting as he nodded to both of them and took a seat.

"Daniel Jackson, are you still concerned?" he asked quietly after Jack had joined them.

Daniel shot him a look but nodded.

"Do you not believe it would be wise to inform Jordan's parents of your suspicions," Teal'c said pointedly. It wasn't really a question. Or an option. Not the way he said it.

Daniel took a deep breath and turned to Jack and Sam, who now looked very concerned.

"What is it, Daniel?" Sam asked.

"I just… I've been thinking. About what you said about there still being some unanswered questions as to what exactly Jormungand wants with Jordan. The more I thought about it, the more there were."

"Who cares why, now? The why was only important when it led us to the where," Jack said stubbornly, as though saying it firmly enough could make it so.

Nobody argued with him. Daniel just continued. "In thinking about it, and in light of what you told me about Jordan's brain scans in the past and everything, I started trying to remember more about my time with the Ancients. Teal'c helped me, a lot. We meditated together, which I haven't done as much lately as I should have…"

"Daniel, just spill it," Jack ordered, but nicely. Relatively speaking.

"I can't access a lot of the memories. I tried. But I was still thinking about it, and… There's no evidence that the Asgard were ever interested in Ascension. But they had to be aware of it because they had a free exchange of information with the Ancients, and it was the Ancient pet project."

"That's true," Sam said quietly.

"You think he wants to try to make Jordan _Ascend_? And what, video tape it?" Jack asked. There was no reason to explain why the thought terrified him so much. Watching Daniel dying slowly as, what he later told them, a necessary step towards ascension had been one of the most horrific things any of them had ever seen.

"I didn't mean to scare you though," Daniel said quickly. "The fact that he exposed her to the repository first seems to indicate that he's trying to learn _about _ascension. He couldn't really learn much if she just up and ascended like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "So maybe he was trying to learn about it in theory, through her, as the information unspooled in her mind. Maybe he has a way of recording what she's thinking, or he could simply be interrogating her…"

"He could have one of those memory recall devices," Sam suggested. "And even a display, like Hathor. He could literally see her thoughts."

"Right, something like that," Daniel said, continuing. "But here's what I'm thinking. I think it's entirely possible that… as another evolution of the same form… humans are sort of… endowed with an instinctive knowledge of ascension. Or at least of the possibility of it. If you think about it, that could very well be why so many religions on Earth center on the same basic principles and concepts, whatever words and forms they choose to express them. And even why so many of them except the very young from the normal rules regarding death and the afterlife. And I guess if it has to do with our ancestry, it's possible that those with the ATA gene are endowed with a bigger sense of it or something.

So putting the human aspect of it aside for the moment, I'm sort of thinking that… maybe Jormungand is at least thinking… that given Jordan's ATA gene and her young age, she might have enough innate knowledge to ascend by herself if the circumstances were right. So if he exposes her to the concept, with the knowledge of the Ancients, and the spark of knowledge is already there inside of her somewhere, maybe inside some of the normally dormant brain activity that's active in her that Janet was talking about… maybe in junk DNA or something, who knows, that's not really my area, but maybe he's hoping to coax her into ascending, while observing and recording the whole process so he can try to learn how to do it himself."

"Do you think that's remotely possible?" Sam asked in a stunned awe.

"I don't know," Daniel admitted. "But… it's the knowledge the Ancients had that the Asgard didn't. And it would at least explain why he wanted her."

Sam thought for a moment and said, "But we don't have any evidence that Jormungand knew anything specifically about Jordan's brain activity or anything. His last known update was before she was even conceived."

"Yes, but he had to have access to other information at some point or he wouldn't have been able to orchestrate her kidnapping. You're right though, it's possible he was gambling on the fact that Jack would pass on his ATA gene alone, and then examined her after he'd taken her and confirmed it, if that's what he was looking for. Look, this is all conjecture, I freely admit it. But it would explain a lot."

"It would," Sam admitted. "But Daniel… you don't think she would really choose to ascend, do you? She has to know we're looking for her; that we're coming for her no matter how long it takes. Do you really think she would want to leave us?"

"I don't think that," Daniel said firmly. "But Jormungand might not know that. So it could still be his plan, and he could still be trying to do it." He kept aside the fact that he was really worried that with all the confluence of circumstances: Jordan's heightened brain activity, the ATA gene, living with the knowledge of the Ancients in her mind for days, and her young age, might all converge to mean that Jordan didn't have to _want _to ascend the way Daniel had to do – at that point, it might be almost entirely involuntary on her part, once the knowledge had completely unspooled in her mind like it had in Jack's.

Remembering how far gone Jack had been at that point, it scared him to think of little Jordan in that condition. It was that thought which really scared him – what if they got there and Jordan was already gone?

Looking at Jack and Sam, as they looked at each other sadly, digesting the new theory, he couldn't bring himself to tell them what he was most afraid of.

"There is good news here," Teal'c said quietly after several moments. "If this was Jormungand's plan, he must have kept Jordan safe, to record as much data from her mind as he can." He didn't add that, once he felt he'd recorded all he could about the middle portion of the process, Jormungand would undoubtedly need to see the actual act of ascending itself. An act which often necessitated dying.

The unspoken fears of Daniel and Teal'c would both eventually occur to Jack and Sam as well, but for the moment all they could do was try to process the new information. Neither was sure whether it would be better to hope that Daniel was right, or that he was wrong.

xxxxx

Of course, since Jormungand had taken her, Jordan had wanted to leave. But it had been ages and ages, it seemed, since she had given up trying to come up with an escape plan. This wasn't an escape plan… it was just a growing desire to _leave. _Something inside her, she was sure, was telling her to leave, telling her she _must _leave, and trying to tell her how. Remembering what her parents had always instilled in her, she was struggling against those feelings because she knew that when you were lost, you were supposed to stay put and wait for Mommy and Daddy to find you. But it was getting harder and harder to think about what her parents had said, and easier and easier to think about leaving.

xxxxx


	23. Going in

Ch 23

"Okay, people," Jack announced to the group gathered in the bridge of Thor's ship. "We're getting close to the point where we're going to split up, so I want to go over the details of the plan one more time, just to be sure. Jacob, SG-5, Teal'c, Daniel, Carter, and I are taking the Al'kesh from the rendezvous point on. We'll approach the prison planet cloaked and take as many readings as we can from space; try to get a better idea of what exactly he's got down there. Hopefully he's alone, but keep in mind he had access to a poorly working cloning facility, so Thor thinks it's possible he might have some minions down there slumping around. Disfigured as he says they may be, they can still be armed to the teeth. If they have teeth."

He paused for a moment at that and continued. "Anyway. We'll report back all we have and then take the escape pods down to the surface, leaving Jake in the cloaked Al'kesh with a communication device to you guys, and another to us down there.

"At that point, we split up. Two men from SG-5 head for the shield and sensor room and takes that out so Thor and Jake can come into the fight. Sam and Daniel take out the beam lock so Thor can beam us out from anywhere, and the rest of SG-5 starts looking for Jordan, along with Teal'c and I. When the rest of you get there, half of you will split up at various locations with the intent of securing Jormungand so that he cannot escape the planet, either with or without Jordan but _especially _with her. If we still haven't located her by then, the rest of you split into twos and start looking for her too, leaving enough people around to secure a safe exit once we've got her. Any questions?"

Nobody had any.

"Good. Study your plans of the building and your contingency plans for extraction as well. I don't need to tell any of you how important this one is to us." Not wanting to get emotional in front of people he was about to lead into what could easily turn into a combat situation, he abruptly said, "Good luck," and dismissed everyone.

Respectfully, they all saluted and left, leaving those boarding the Al'kesh in the hangar to enter, get settled, and wait for takeoff.

xxxxx

"Okay, we're in orbit around the planet," Jacob said, fiddling with controls on his console. "Still cloaked, of course. Starting initial scans…"

Sam let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when a visual display popped up in front of the window, glad they weren't going to have to go into the situation totally blind. A schematic of the building's layout popped up, with several pulsing dots, many of them moving, showing life signs within.

There had to be over fifty, maybe even close to a hundred.

"Dammit," Jack swore beside her. "So, he's made himself a nice little army of messed up clones."

"We always knew this was a possibility," Jacob reminded him, as SG-1 and SG-5 began gearing up.

"Yeah, yeah. I don't suppose there's any way to tell which one of those dots is Jordan?" he asked hopefully as he clipped his P-90 to his vest.

Sam shook her head. "Not yet. Although, if Dad and Janet watch the monitor long enough they might be able to figure it out by process of elimination."

Jacob nodded. "We'll keep our eyes peeled for any dots that are either completely stationary or seem to be confined to one room."

Janet nodded her agreement.

"A lot of them aren't moving though," Daniel observed.

"Maybe it's after bedtime down there," Jack suggested. His tone wasn't hopeful, but he was.

They all finished getting ready wordlessly, exchanged looks of utmost determination, and headed to the escape pods together. Jacob and Janet helped them each into a pod and launched them all together, Janet following Jacob's lead and holding her breath nervously, unused to this type of mission. When she did go off world, it was almost always to check on someone's condition and stabilize them before bringing them back to the base.

"Now what?" she asked, once she and Jacob were alone.

"Now, the worst part," Jacob said. "We wait. And watch."

xxxxx

Jack climbed out of his escape pod after it opened with a groan for the sake of his knees. Why couldn't they put a little more cushioning inside those things? They were guaranteed to have a rough landing, after all. Adjusting his vest and weapons, he looked around for everyone else. Sam and Daniel were studying something, probably trying to determine which way they needed to go. Teal'c was approaching from a few yards away with SG-5. Everyone appeared unhurt by the rough landing.

"Got it?" he asked Sam as they all regrouped.

"Yes, sir," she said, out of old habit. They hadn't been in the field together in a long time. "We're closest to the south side of the complex. So you, Teal'c, Wilson, and Barber need to circle around to the north side, where the housing complex is. Daniel and I will go to the east side for the beam controls, and Harper and Warren will stay here until we're all in place."

"What if it takes us longer to get rid of the scanners and shields than it takes you guys?" Harper asked.

"It doesn't matter. We want to keep our presence a secret as long as possible, so he doesn't have a chance to move Jordan. We all need to enter the facility at the same time," Jack said firmly. "Okay. We've got the longest walk. We'll radio you when we're in position. Radio silence until then unless you're spotted or something goes down."

They all nodded and set off. Since the front of the building faced westward, the two groups moving into position actually traveled together for a while. When they reached the east side, they stopped and Sam scanned ahead to confirm that they were in the right place. "Faint energy readings from about fifty yards ahead. That should be it."

Jack nodded and waved Teal'c to take point from then on. After Wilson and Barber had started to follow him, he turned back to Sam and Daniel, looking at Sam. He had never liked to split the team up before, always feeling he was leaving someone not as protected as they should be. It was nearly impossible now, to leave his wife with Daniel. Daniel had come a long way, but he was still only one set of eyes. And two trigger fingers. "Be careful," he finally managed to say, realizing he needed to quit staring and get moving.

"We will," she promised quietly. "You too."

He swallowed hard, nodded, turned to go, then turned around again. Giving Daniel a look that the younger man had long ago learnt to interpret as 'you're going to want to avert your eyes now, Daniel,' Jack walked briskly back over to them and pulled Sam into a tight hug. It wasn't a very comfortable hug, since they both had vests on with, among other things, P-90's strapped to them. He loosened his grip enough to pull back and look at her, and kissed her.

Daniel took the opportunity to study all the oh-so-original looking trees and other foliage around them for several moments before letting out a pathetically fake sounding cough.

"All right," Jack grumbled after pulling away from his wife reluctantly. He started to say goodbye, but didn't want to jinx them all by doing so, so he cleared his throat and said, "I'll find her," instead.

Sam nodded, blinking back tears. Jack gave Daniel a look that warned him in no uncertain terms that he had better not let anything happen to Sam. Daniel resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because Jack hadn't needed to give any of them that look since… forever, really. As a team, they had always put each other before themselves. And yet, Jack still always felt the need to give the look. Cutting him a bit of slack, Daniel just nodded slightly.

Jack looked at them both one more time, quickly, then turned and left, walking quickly to catch up with the group, who had stopped a discreet distance ahead.

xxxxx

"Shouldn't be much longer now," Sam said confidently to Daniel, checking her watch for about the four hundredth time, in his estimation. He just nodded in response. She was pacing back in front of him again, which she had done in between brief periods of resting against a tree.

"Sam, aren't you tired?" he asked. "I mean, your feet or your back, or anything? They don't hurt?"

She gave him a funny look and opened her mouth to say no, but closed it as her radio crackled to life on her vest near her ear. "All right, we're in position," Jack said quietly through the radio.

"So are we," Sam answered.

"Ditto back here," SG-5's leader echoed.

"All right, move in. Radio silence unless and until someone spots hostiles or finds Jordan. Move."

At the order, Sam and Daniel hurried towards the facility.

It wasn't hard to get into. The doors were electronically sealed, and she quickly popped open the access panel and opened it. Guns raised, they moved inside in proper formation, hugging the walls and making quick sweeps of the corridors. It was dark, but not pitch black. The lights weren't on in here, but they were on somewhere.

They moved as quietly as possible along the corridors until they got to a room that could let them know exactly where in the complex they were. Finding a backup generator room let Sam orient herself, and she began leading them towards their destination when her radio clicked twice; a signal to make contact. They ducked into an empty room and she whispered, "Go ahead."

"Colonel Carter, this device looks totally different from what you and Thor showed us!"

"It should still be wired the same on the inside, just…"

"We can't make heads or tails of this thing, we're going to need your help unless you want us to just blow it up."

Jack's angry whisper came over the radio. "Don't blow it up, whatever you do! We haven't found Jordan yet and so far we haven't been detected."

"Jack, Dad is way closer than Thor is," Sam said quietly. "It makes sense for me to go disable that one first, then I can come back and do this one. We won't need the Asgard beam until we're ready to leave."

"Fine, but be careful. That's a lot of hallways to go through."

xxxxx

Jack turned to Teal'c with an annoyed look. "Plan A never works like we want it to," he said, frustrated.

"O'Neill, would you like me to meet up with Daniel Jackson and Colonel Carter on the way to the control room?"

Jack thought about it for a few moments and shook his head. "They'll take care of themselves. And they're meeting SG-5. If I find Jo alone and need to carry her out I'll need you for cover."

"Very well."

xxxxx

It wasn't as complicated as Sam had feared. While it had taken nearly half an hour to get over to SG-5 undetected, it had only taken five minutes to disengage the shield and the sensors that SG-5 had been in charge of. Annoyed at the delay, Sam led Daniel back towards their original task at a brisker pace, after sending SG-5 to go help Jack look for Jordan.

They were in the middle of a long corridor with no convenient hiding places when what could only be a prison alarm started going off loudly. A second later, a voice yelled over her radio, "We've been found, they're everywhere!"

xxxxx


	24. Getting Out

They were in the middle of a long corridor with no convenient hiding places when what could only be a prison alarm started going off loudly

_They were in the middle of a long corridor with no convenient hiding places when what could only be a prison alarm started going off loudly. A second later, a voice yelled over her radio, "We've been found, they're everywhere!" _

Ch 24

Daniel swore and took the safety off his weapon, running after Sam. No need to walk quietly now. They only managed to gain about a hundred yards before several aliens came at them with weapons that discharged like some ancient form of a zat gun.

"Thor was right about the clones being imperfect!" Daniel called to her as he ran past one of the bodies they had mowed down.

"Fascinating!" Sam yelled back sarcastically.

Daniel made himself catch up with her, which wasn't easy. She usually took the lead since he wasn't military and she was, but in her current condition he just couldn't justify it to himself, and was more than a little annoyed at her for maintaining the lead position. He pushed past her roughly in the narrow corridor, ignoring her indignant, "DANIEL!" and took the lead.

Five minutes later he was kicking himself for doing it, when she screamed in agony behind him and he turned in time to see her hit the ground, three aliens coming at them from behind and still shooting at him. He sent a spray of zat shots at them, having given up on his gun because the aliens seemed to go down way faster with the zat, whether it was due to a deadened nervous system or whatever, Daniel had no idea. He zatted them all, but not before they got him too.

He went down, landing hard on his knees and screaming in pain. He'd been zatted before, and it hurt. A lot. This was at least ten times worse. He made himself zat them all again from his kneeling spot, reaching for Sam as well, because she wasn't up yet.

Once all the aliens were down for the count, he pulled her to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. That hurt," she said, wincing.

"Tell me about it," he agreed. "Let's not see if two of those kill you also."

"Right," Sam agreed.

They moved as fast as they could down the corridor again. "You know, this time we won't have to bother with the tech," Sam called as they ran. "We can just blow it up."

xxxxx

Jack burst into the room where his daughter was being held captive and zatted every alien in sight. It would have been much more satisfying to pump them full of bullets, but he couldn't take the risk of Jordan accidentally being hurt in the process. When they all lay dead or unconscious - he couldn't have cared less which one it was - he ran over to his daughter.

She was strapped to the same device Hathor's goons had used on SG-1 years ago (so Sam and Daniel's predictions had been right after all), and she was unconscious. He felt her pulse quickly and was sure his own heart only resumed beating when he felt the corresponding flutter under his fingertips. "Jo! Wake up, sweetheart, we have to get out of here," he encouraged as he started taking all the devices and restraints off of her.

She opened her eyes finally and looked at him, eyes widening in surprise as she reached out a perfect little hand towards his face. She touched his cheek gently, asking a question with her eyes.

"I'm here. I'm real, you're not dreaming, Jordan. We're going to take you home. Everybody's here." He kissed her head and said, "Are you okay? Can you move?"

She nodded. He frowned, wondering why she wasn't talking and hoping she wasn't that far gone yet – Daniel had told him that just before they took him to the Asgard home world, he seemed completely unable to communicate with them at all. But he didn't have time to ponder that at the moment. "Come on." He picked her up, glad when she had the strength to latch onto him with her arms and legs so he only had to use one arm to support her. Now that he had her, he switched the zat for the P-90 and headed out, kissing her head as he clicked the radio on. "I've got her. Everybody still okay?"

"Jack is she…" Sam's petrified voice came over the radio.

She couldn't finish the sentence, but he knew what she meant. "She's okay, Sam," he promised. "She's awake and…"

"Jordan?"

Jordan lifted her head off her dad's shoulder and looked at the radio with a small, but dazed looking smile, but didn't say anything.

"She's not up to talking at the moment, honey, but she's alert and happy to hear your voice."

"She's not talking – a-are you sure she's okay?"

"Yes. Get back to the rendezvous point everyone," Jack ordered.

"We haven't finished planting our explosives," Daniel said.

"I don't give a damn. Let Thor blow it up from space."

"Jack if we don't damage the shields first it won't…"

"Fall back, dammit, Daniel!" Before he could finish yelling at Daniel, he stopped abruptly in the doorway of the room where he'd found Jordan, face to face with the most normal looking alien he'd seen so far. Daniel buzzing annoyingly in his ear, Jack switched off his radio. From the way Jordan cringed and shrunk into his side, he knew exactly who this must be. And he had never wanted to dismember somebody so much in his entire life.

The alien looked from Jordan to Jack to Teal'c, who seemed to be harboring the same murderous tendencies as Jack, and held his hands out, palms up, in a sign of surrender. He said something Jack didn't understand. Jack looked to Teal'c, who shook his head slightly. "Is this Jormungand, Jo?" Jack asked his daughter quietly.

She nodded violently before hiding her face in his neck. He could feel his skin and shirt getting damp with tears after a few moments, and his rage at the alien before him nearly boiled over again. Jaw twitching, he tried to ignore the voice in his head (which sounded like Daniel) that kept pointing out (annoyingly, like Daniel) that the alien was unarmed and appeared to be surrendering, and the Air Force would undoubtedly frown upon a summary execution under such circumstances.

Before he could get into an ethical debate with himself, the alien spoke again, in English. "I surrender unconditionally and request protected status under the Asgard High Law 4323-D. I assume you came with Thor. I will go quietly without resistance."

Jack looked at Teal'c, who stated, with the barest hint of sadness in his voice, "We might upset our allies, the Asgard, if we fail to honor their codes of dealing with their own criminals."

"True," Jack agreed. Plus, he didn't exactly want his daughter to see him doing something so morally dubious as what he was privately considering. He watched, disappointed, as Teal'c shouldered his weapon so he could cuff Jormungand behind the back with zip ties. He, like Teal'c, evidently, did still take some satisfaction from the strange squeaking noise Jormungand emitted when Teal'c forced his arms behind his back into the proper position and bound them, with much more force than was probably necessary. The alien secured, Jack clicked his radio back on and interrupted a stream of Daniel asking tons of questions. "Daniel! We've got Jormungand in custody. Repeat orders to fall back immediately."

"Jack!" Daniel groaned. "When you quit answering, we kept going. We're THERE, Sam's planting the C-4 now."

"Fine, blow it and _then _go. But do it FAST."

"All right!" Daniel said, sounding exasperated. From the other sounds filtering through the walkie talkies, they were still dealing with at least a few of the clones.

Jormungand now in tow, watched closely by Teal'c, Jack hurried to the nearest exit, wanting to get outdoors so Jacob or Thor could locate them quickly.

xxxxx

Sam and Daniel hurried out of the beam control room, Sam holding the remote detonator for the brick of C-4 she'd just slapped onto the side of the control panel. She and Daniel hugged the wall, Daniel leaning over her shoulders and plugging his ears with his fingers. She was about to press the button on the detonator when a bunch of clones flooded the corridor from both ends, shooting. Sam dropped the detonator and started spraying P-90 fire down one end, while Daniel started zatting towards the other.

He glanced over his shoulder to check on her when the spray of bullets sound halted. She was now zatting as well, while reloading her P-90 with the other hand. She had just slammed the new rounds into place when the second zat hit her.

Daniel screamed and dropped his weapon, catching her as she fell halfway to the floor.

"Two shots," he muttered, then some part of his brain reminded him they were still in danger. He fumbled next to Sam's leg for the detonator, found it, and pressed the button. The loud explosion from the room next to him startled the clones.

Maybe they thought he could do it again, closer to them, or maybe they didn't know what to do in response to the situation and needed further instructions from their boss, but regardless of the reason, they fled.

Daniel immediately turned his attention back to Sam, lowering her the rest of the way to the ground and feeling for a pulse. "Two shots," he muttered again. "But they were minutes apart. And it's old technology. Two shots." He couldn't really feel a pulse. He thought he might have felt a faint one, but he wasn't sure. "Dammit, Sam." He wiped at his eyes, which were tearing automatically, and clicked his radio. "Jack, Teal'c, where are you?" he asked urgently.

"Heading out. That beam thing down yet?"

"Yeah, it's down. Sam got it down, but… she got hit, Jack. Twice."

There was silence on the other end of the radio for what seemed like forever but was actually only a few moments. "She… she's okay though, right?" Jack finally asked.

"I don't know, I mean, I don't know how hard and fast the two blast rule is with this old tech and the amount of time between shots and… I don't know, Jack, but…"

"She's been hit twice before and she survived," Jack said, sounding very hoarse. "She'll be fine. We just have to get her to Thor. Get her to a clear area so Thor can identify you and he'll beam you guys out first."

"Okay, Jack, but…" Daniel started nervously.

"Daniel! Do it!"

"I will!" he said hastily, looking around for options. He was pretty sure it was just a matter of time before the rest of the clones that had ambushed them came back. He decided to head for the closest exit.

He lifted Sam up over one of his shoulders so he could still see and have a hand free to shoot his zat gun and activated the communication device Thor had given him. "Thor! Everything's down, you can beam us out now. You need to get Sam fast, she got hit twice by a zat and I can't feel a pulse... dammit!" he swore again as more clones filled the corridor he was trying to hurry down.

He started shooting, then looked around in confusion as someone yelled, "Get down, Jackson!"

He obeyed, crouching down on the ground and shielding Sam as best he could, as more P-90 fire filled the air. Half of SG-5 was approaching from the opposite end of the corridor. "We'll help you get out of here," a Major yelled over the gunfire. "Get behind us and start moving. We're supposed to get you outside so Thor can get a lock. Teal'c says he'll be in range in ten minutes. Jacob said he could land and pick you up, but the nearest clearing big enough for him to land in is more than ten minutes from here, even at a run!"

"Okay!" Daniel yelled back, to show that he'd heard. He carefully made his way behind them with Sam and stood up, shifting her back to his shoulder. With SG-5 protecting him, he could move much more quickly.

They burst outside five minutes later. Thirty seconds later, another door opened. The rest of SG-5, plus Jack and Teal'c, alien prisoner in tow, ran out the door. Jack was carrying Jordan. When the two groups spotted each other, they ran towards each other, doubling in speed somehow.

Jordan screamed and started struggling when she saw Sam.

Jack set her down and helped Daniel lower Sam to the ground. Jack felt for a pulse and a heartbeat, looking at Daniel for an explanation, but with a look in his eyes like he was still convinced this just couldn't be real.

"This isn't right," he muttered firmly under his breath. "We're all okay, we found Jordan, we got her out. We even caught the bad guy. The plan _worked. _It worked, she can't be… she's going to be okay. Thor can fix her." He was as close to babbling as any of them had ever heard him.

Nobody seemed to be able to do anything other than stand there watching.

Then Jordan, whom Teal'c had been trying to keep restrained a few feet away from Sam, twisted out of his grip, since he didn't want to hold onto her tightly enough to injure her. She ran over to where her mom lay on the ground, still and not moving, and dropped to her knees next to her, frowning and looking at her mom's face in confusion.

"Teal'c, keep her back," Jack ordered.

Before Teal'c could move, though, Jordan had pushed her dad, hard – something she had never done before. She pushed him away from her mom and he sat back on his heels, more out of surprise than anything.

Scrunching her face up in concentration, Jordan tucked her hair back behind both ears and scooted up to her mom's side, even with her shoulders. She put a tiny, warm hand on her mom's forehead and the other hand over her heart and closed her eyes.

Daniel and Teal'c knew what she was trying to do – Jack had no memory of it. Daniel moved to stop her but Teal'c blocked him.

"What the hell," Jack muttered after a few moments, making a move towards Jordan.

She said something in Ancient.

"She said 'I can help,'" Daniel translated quietly.

After a few moments, Jack noticed something. There was a glow between Jordan's hands and Sam's body.

Everyone stared as though as frozen in place as Jordan was. After nearly a full minute, Jordan and Sam both opened their eyes at the same time.

xxxxx


	25. Going Home

Ch 25

Ch 25

Sam looked up and saw her daughter leaning over her, messy blonde tangly waves hanging on either side of her face, down into Sam's. Confused, her head killing her, Sam barely had time to smile and just begin to appreciate the feeling of intense relief that flooded through her at the sight of her daughter, right in front of her, before Jordan had scooted out of view. Sam tried to sit up so she could still see her, but Jordan was holding her down with a hand on her chest.

Another little hand pressed to her abdomen and Jack, sounding very far away even though Sam knew that he was right there, demanded, "What's she doing now?"

The glow started again. Sam wanted to demand answers from all the people around her but couldn't quite muster the energy to speak yet. In fact, she was beginning to fear that maybe she wasn't even awake. Maybe this was all a dream…

xxxxx

Jack watched in stunned silence as his daughter continued to… to _heal _her mother. There couldn't be any other word for it. Sam had either been critically injured or worse – and it was almost certainly worse, and Jordan had healed her. Sam was clearly breathing now, and struggling to keep her eyes open, blinking heavily.

"Jordan possesses the healing power of the Ancients," Teal'c said quietly, from somewhere above Jack, who was still crouched on the ground next to his wife and daughter.

Jordan had been still, a hand on Sam's heart and stomach, for over a minute, so when she moved, none of them were expecting it. The glow between her hands and Sam's body cut out abruptly and Jordan, pale, slumped over across Sam's legs, unconscious.

"No!" Jack pulled her to him quickly, cradling her in his lap with one arm and brushing her hair back from her face while trying to get his fingers to her neck. She had a pulse, but barely.

Sam, next to him, had somehow managed to sit up. She grabbed his arm fiercely for support, trying to see Jordan. "What happened? What did she do… oh no. She… She didn't." She slumped into him, unconscious.

Teal'c and Daniel were there immediately, extra hands and arms to help support them all.

"Why would she… if she couldn't, why would she?" Jack asked Daniel, confused.

"I don't know," Daniel said quietly. "Maybe she didn't know how much it would take out of her to do."

"They are both alive, O'Neill," Teal'c said gently, a large hand settling warmly on Jack's shoulder. "Take solace in that. Thor will arrive soon. He will remove the database from Jordan's mind, and he and Dr. Fraiser will restore their health."

Jack nodded. Teal'c was right. Teal'c had to be right. Teal'c was always right. He was Teal'c, for cryin' out loud!

Right on cue, it seemed, the Asgard communication device glowed and Thor's voice said, "Dr. Jackson, are you all outside the complex?"

"Yes, that's us, Thor. Get us up there, and tell Jacob to get Janet on your ship as fast as possible too. Sam and Jordan need medical attention."

"I will do as you say," Thor said.

Teal'c stood up, picking up Sam gently as he did, taking the decision of whom to carry away from Jack, who seemed to be so torn that he was stuck in one place, immobile. Once Teal'c had taken Sam, Jack followed suit and got to his feet with Jordan cradled in his arms. Nobody said anything while they waited for Thor; there was nothing to say.

A minute that seemed like thirty passed before they were beamed up by Thor.

As they rematerialized on the bridge of Thor's ship, he was already leaving his console to meet them. "I have the device ready which will cleanse Jordan's mind of the ancient knowledge," he said, leading them over to a tubular device that looked like some sort of Asgard tanning bed. He stopped halfway towards them, looking as upset as any Asgard could ever manage to look. "What has happened to Colonel Carter?"

"That's the thing," Daniel said. "She got shot twice. I'm not sure if she was technically dead, but if she wasn't she was close. Jordan… used the Ancient knowledge to heal her. Sam woke up briefly but then passed out once she realized what Jordan had done."

"She used the healing power? Her body is then likely too weak to remove the knowledge now. That process requires significant energy to undergo under the best of circumstances. Place her here. I will do what I can with the materials available until Dr. Fraiser arrives. Her knowledge of your physiology is superior to my own."

Jack put Jordan down reluctantly, feeling her forehead. She was clammy. Thor started running some hand held scanner thing over her. Daniel was hurriedly bringing out one of the cots they'd used on the journey there, from the nearest quarters, knowing they would all want Sam and Jordan in the same area so they could see them both at the same time. He put the bed next to the open pod Jordan was lying in. When it was in place, Teal'c carefully placed her down.

"She is very weak," Thor reported. "And yet her brain continues to operate at levels far beyond your normal human capacity."

"What about Sam?" Jack asked.

Thor moved between the makeshift beds and scanned her as well. "Her pulse is strong. Her systems seem to be fighting to rapidly return to a state of equilibrium. I believe she will recover quickly."

Half-relieved, Jack surveyed everyone in the room, his eyes settling on Jormungand. "He did all of this," he said quietly.

"Yeah, Thor, do you have a place we can secure him where we don't have to… see him?" Daniel asked pointedly.

"I will secure him far from your quarters and deal with him later," Thor promised quickly, leading Jormungand away.

"I bet that's why he left the kitten," Daniel murmured thoughtfully to himself. Seeing Jack and Teal'c looking at him, Daniel said, "Um, I just meant… it could have been his contingency plan. Depending on the Asgard's laws with regard to prisoner treatment… maybe he figured if his plan with Jordan didn't work and he didn't learn how to ascend, he should cut his losses and turn himself in and hope the Asgard will be compelled to try to preserve his life for him."

"Can we talk about this later, Daniel?" Jack asked quietly.

Daniel nodded and then asked, "Is there… anything you want us to do?"

Jack shook his head no, but then said, "See where the doc is."

Teal'c immediately went over to the console and hailed Jacob's cargo ship. "Jacob Carter, what is your status?"

"Teal'c! I was just about to call – we're ready for Thor to let us in."

"Thor is busy. I will let you in." Teal'c deftly moved the sliding controls to allow the cargo ship into the hangar and watched on the display screen as Jacob maneuvered the cargo ship inside. "Dr. Fraiser, we need you in the bridge as fast as possible," Teal'c said. The quiet calmness of his voice was totally unnerving to everyone who heard him, because it was so clearly forced.

"I'll be there," Janet promised over the intercom. Sure enough, on the display Teal'c could clearly see her run out of the cargo ship the second the doors opened, emergency pack of supplied slung over one shoulder. Jacob followed a few paces behind, carrying more equipment.

"They are coming," Teal'c promised, returning to Jordan's side.

Janet and Jacob hurried into the room two minutes later, out of breath. In between gasps, Janet asked, "What happened?"

While Daniel filled her in, she started checking Jordan's vitals, forcing herself to stay in doctor-only mode.

"… and Thor says he can't take the Ancient knowledge out of her head until she's doing better," Daniel finished, wincing as Fraiser inserted an IV line into the back of Jordan's tiny hand. She handed the bag to Teal'c to hold while Jacob set up the collapsible pole to support it, and started unpacking the heart monitor.

Within five minutes they had Jordan hooked up to an IV of essential fluids and electrolytes, and were monitoring her heart and brain activity.

"These readings are more extreme than we've ever seen," Janet said, frowning as she looked at the image of Jordan's brain on the little screen display. "Way worse than yours, General. Cassie's too. Thor needs to be prepared to get that stuff out of her head the second she's strong enough."

"Maybe I can speed things along," Jacob said, pulling out a Goa'uld healing device from his bag.

Janet, notoriously skeptical about the devices, nodded and moved to check on Sam, leaving Jacob to the task of healing Jordan. She quickly hooked Sam up to another heart monitor and checked all of her vitals. "She's unbelievably well, considering the circumstances," she concluded in amazement. "In fact, she should be…"

"Jordan!" Sam said suddenly, startling them all as she jerked awake. She looked around, quickly taking everything in. "Everything was black, and then… is she going to be okay, Dad?" she asked helplessly.

"I think so," Jacob said tersely, too focused on his task to answer more thoroughly.

Sam insisted on sitting up, turning to face Jordan. She buried her face in her hands, waving away Janet's attempt to take a blood sample, and said, "She shouldn't have done it."

"She seemed fine at first," Jack said, confused. "Then she did the second thing and it looked like it just sapped her of all her energy. I get the head and the heart but what was she doing to her stomach?" he demanded.

Daniel and Janet gaped at him, while Sam and Jack stared back at them in equal confusion.

Teal'c was the one who finally broke the stale mate. "I believe Jordan O'Neill was bravely attempting to save her young sibling."

Sam and Jack looked, if possible, even more surprised. "Her _what?_" Jack finally croaked, then looked at Sam with a combination of amazement and "you'd better have a good reason for not cluing me in."

"Don't look at me!" Sam exclaimed, seeing everyone looking at her. "I'm not… wait a second. I'm _pregnant?_"

"You didn't know?" Daniel and Janet demanded at once.

"No! Of course I didn't know!"

As the past events all fell into place under this new light of information, Daniel's dawning look of recognition drew Sam's attention. "Wait. You all knew? How did you know and I didn't?"

As Janet and Daniel explained the conversation they'd overheard, the test results, Jordan asking Janet all about babies, and their ensuing attempts to surreptitiously help Sam, they all realized where the misunderstandings had happened.

"Wait. I get how you knew, Doc, you had the test from when she passed out. But how did _Jo _know?" Jack finally asked.

At this, nobody had an answer.

They turned their attention back to Jordan, Sam trying hard not to think too much about the revelation, since even though she had apparently _been _pregnant, there was no guarantee that after all she'd just been through, she still was. She barely noticed when Janet hooked her up to another machine until Janet was guiding her back into a lying position and put cold goop on her stomach for a sonogram.

Jacob had stopped and put down the healing device, feeling his granddaughter's forehead gently. "That's as much as I can do for her without getting dangerous, but it did help. I think."

At the pronouncement, Jordan's eyes fluttered open. She looked around and focused immediately on Sam and asked, "Es concerus sollicitudus?"

Daniel's eyes widened. "Concerus?" he repeated. "As in… concero?" Jordan just looked at him steadily, not blinking. "She ah… she wants to know if the twins are okay," he explained.

"Twins?" Sam and Jack asked at the same time.

Now moving at double speed, Janet switched on the machine and started running the wand over Sam's stomach. After a few moments of moving it around and looking at the screen, she said, "I don't believe it. She's right. There they are." She switched up the volume on the machine and two very rapid, echoey heartbeats beating just slightly out of sync filled the room. "And as far as I can tell from this, they look just fine." She smiled encouragingly at Sam, who looked suddenly terrified.

"I shouldn't have been… I didn't know. I wouldn't have put them in so much danger if I had known," she said sadly, eyes filling with tears.

Jack sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her into a comforting hug. "We know. We know you wouldn't have. And it's okay, because they're all right. Everyone's going to be all right."

Jordan was misinterpreting her mother's sadness. Getting worried, she started struggling to sit up. Daniel, guessing what was wrong, put a hand on her shoulder gently and made her lay back down. He murmured quietly, "Liberi es sanus… Vos erant mirus… Sileo iam. Permissum… nos tego… texi tectum tutela vestrum."

Jordan let out a deep breath in relief and relaxed, laying back down and letting her eyes drift closed again.

"What did you tell her?" Janet asked.

"That the babies were okay. That she did a wonderful job. That she could rest, and let us take care of her now," he answered quietly, tucking Jordan's hair back behind her ears for her. He'd seen her do it at least a thousand times.

"Daniel, in my pack," Sam said suddenly, insistently, lifting her head from Jack's shoulders and wiping her eyes.

Daniel obediently fetched the pack and looked inside. It was immediately obvious what she wanted. He pulled out Jordan's Homer Simpson doll and tucked it next to the little girl's side.

"Thanks," Sam said. She sighed in relief and then shook her head. "It's not fair. I feel just fine now. A little tired, maybe, but… I feel really, really good. And look at her. This isn't right."

"She knew she could help," Jack said, although he too was struggling to balance out his feelings. He was beyond relieved that Sam was okay, thrilled about the surprising news of not one but two babies, and happy beyond belief that they had found Jordan. But seeing his daughter struggling so hard in those brief moments when she'd woken, seeing how much it had cost her to focus enough to ask after the babies she'd risked so much to save… remembering no details of his own experience beyond the unbelievable frustration and effort involved in it… it just about broke his heart.

After a few moments when everyone just watched Jordan sleeping, with the exception of Janet who was putting away some of the equipment she'd used on Sam, Thor came back. "Jormungand has told me everything and expressed his accepted the terms of his future punishment, whatever they may be. Colonel Carter!"

"Hi Thor," she said.

"You are much improved. I am pleased. I was concerned."

"Thank you. Janet says I'm fine and so are the babies," she said, saying it out loud for herself the first time.

That caused Thor to pause. "Babies?"

"Yeah, join the club. We didn't know about them either," Jack said. "Well, _some _of us didn't," he clarified, casting meaningful scowls at Daniel, Teal'c, and Janet.

"We thought you knew," Daniel said feebly.

"Jordan used the healing power of the Ancients to save yourself and… more than one offspring?" Thor asked.

"Two… and don't call them offspring," Jack said, rolling his eyes as he remembered some of the more impersonal terms Thor had used for Jordan.

"That explains her exhaustion," Thor said to himself, approaching Jordan and scanning her again with his device.

"I did what I could with the healing device," Jacob said.

"And those fluids will help her too, it just takes time," Janet added.

Thor nodded. "She is much improved as well." He looked at Janet's display of Jordan's brain and his eyes widened. "Are those her current levels?"

"Yes."

"Then we must not wait. Delaying further will most certainly either result in her death… or possibly in ascension, if Daniel Jackson and Jormungand are correct."

"Is she strong enough?" Sam asked.

"I believe so. Dr. Fraiser, I will need you to remove your device for the time being."

Janet nodded and removed the IV and all the monitoring devices from Jordan. Thor then picked up the Homer doll, holding it up at eye level by one plush arm, regarding it curiously for a few moments, before Daniel muttered that he would hang onto it and took it from him. Thor turned his attention back to the controls on the pod and, after programming it properly, activated it. the clear top slid shut, sealing her inside.

They all watched, even though they couldn't see anything happening. After a few moments, Janet asked, "How long…"

"It is almost finished," Thor said.

xxxxx


	26. Healing

26

Ch 26

Jordan had been moved to Sam and Jack's "quarters" on Thor's ship, in a more comfortable bed. She was still hooked up to Janet's monitor and the IV was back in her arm, because Janet had been able to do enough tests to get an exact idea of just how out of balance all of her electrolyte levels and everything else was. Thor and Janet both agreed that all of the Ancient knowledge had safely been removed from her brain, and that she was recovering wonderfully, her body just sleeping to catch up on much needed rest and heal itself.

But Jack and Sam, and everyone else, just wanted Jordan to wake up and tell them she was fine, in English, for herself.

Janet and Sam had cleaned Jordan from head to toe, changed Jordan out of her now quite dirty nightgown into one of Sam's black tee-shirts, which came past the little girl's knees, and she was now resting peacefully under several blankets, her Homer doll tucked into her side. The room had been crowded most of the time, but at the moment Jack and Sam were alone in the room with Jordan, sitting on the other bed in the room, just watching her. Both still felt as though if they let her out of their sight, they'd turn around and she'd be gone again.

Sam thought it would probably be a long time before she completely quit feeling that way, even though she knew in her mind that Jordan was safe now.

Daniel knocked quietly on the open doorframe, asking if it was okay to come in by the look in his eyes and the position of his eyebrows. Jack waved him in. Teal'c followed. Daniel sat down on the floor, his back against the side of the bed Sam and Jack were on. Teal'c stood against the wall near the head of Jordan's bed, arms crossed behind his back. Sam smiled at both of them.

"Thor says we will be back in Earth's orbit in approximately three hours," Teal'c informed them. "He will then beam us all down to Stargate Command."

"Thanks, T," Jack said.

"I spoke with Thor and Jormungand," Daniel said quietly. "He pretty much confirmed everything we had guessed. He was trying to push her slowly to the point of ascension so he could watch the process and try to copy it. And Thor confirmed that the Asgard don't have anything like the death penalty. I had to explain the concept to him, actually. So as long as Jormungand's in their custody, the Asgard are bound by their own laws to try to figure out a way to transfer his consciousness – Goa'uld included – to a new body when the time comes. His backup plan worked."

After several moments, Sam took a deep breath and said, "Well, what really matters is that his first plan _didn't._"

Jack nodded in agreement.

There was another beat of silence before Teal'c said, in a tone that showed he had been dying to ask for sometime, "O'Neill, if you are having twins, may I suggest the names 'Luke' and 'Leia?'"

Jack stared at him for a moment before Sam, next to him, burst out laughing. Once she started, she realized it had been so long since she'd laughed properly that she couldn't stop. Daniel started laughing too, then even Jack let out a few chuckles, and they all sat there smiling and laughing for a long time.

When the laughter finally died down, Sam wiped her eyes absently, still smiling.

Then a familiar, wonderful little voice said, "Mommy? Daddy?"

xxxxx

Everyone was crowded around her bed before Jordan had even propped herself up on her elbows and looked at them properly. Her mom and dad immediately pulled her into a tight hug. As her dad kissed the side of her head, her mom asked, "How do you feel, sweetie?"

"Good." They let go of her enough so they could see her face, and she could see theirs. They were both smiling hugely at her. Her mom was crying, but they were clearly happy tears.

"Really?"

Jordan nodded, struggling to find the right words to explain how she felt. "I… I feel better now. It was scary. I couldn't hear. It was like being underwater, inside my brain. There was all this stuff zooming around that wasn't supposed to be in there and I kept on trying hard to think about home but it kept getting harder and harder and I was scared and alone, and Jormungand said you weren't coming for me and he showed me scary things and said you never wanted me and Thor made you have me and…" once she started, she found it hard to stop.

"Whoa, breathe," her dad instructed, his hand at the back of her head. "Slow down. You know that's not true. You know how much we love you, Jordan."

"I know but he showed me movies of you fighting," Jordan tried to explain.

"We'll talk about that in a little while, if you want, buddy," her mom promised, hugging her again. "For now, just push it aside because it's not true at all. We love you and we have tried so hard to find you, Jordan."

Jordan nodded, then remembered something. "The babies – they're okay?"

"You remember that?" her mom asked, surprised.

Jordan nodded. "I remember… kind of. What I was saying before about feeling underwater… I feel like that was a long time ago, and then it got worse and I don't remember a lot of it. But I remember when you saved me, daddy, then mommy was gone and the babies were gone but I got 'em back… but I wasn't sure if it was real or not. It… this is real, right?" she asked, suddenly scared.

"Yes, this is real, Jordan," her mom promised, kissing her forehead. "And you were so very, very brave. You scared us all very badly when you saved the babies and me, because you were very sick. But you're fine now, and we're all going to be okay. All of us."

Jordan smiled, reassured. Hugging her mom again, she saw Teal'c over her mom's shoulder and then spotted Daniel too. "Uncle Teal'c! Uncle Daniel!"

"Hi Jordan," Daniel said quietly, grinning at her.

"Greetings, Jordan O'Neill. It is good to see you so healthy."

"Uncle T, I did it! I did kel-no-reem SOOOO many times when I first got all that stuff put in my head and it worked for a long time I think but then it got too hard and I couldn't do it anymore. But for a long time I did it, so next time we spar I shouldn't have to, right?"

Teal'c smiled and let out a chuckle. "Very well, Jordan. Next time we spar you will not have to perform kel-no-reem afterwards."

She held out her arms to him, and her mom moved aside, sitting next to her on the bed, so Teal'c could hug her. He scooped her up into a big hug, then settled her in one arm so they were face to face. She smiled at him again, noticing how his dark eyes were twinkling.

"You have fought a worthy battle, and you have brought honor to your name, little one. You have saved your unborn siblings, and your mother as well. I am most proud of you." He hugged her to him again, until Daniel objected that it was his turn, at which point he passed her to the shorter man reluctantly.

She hugged Daniel round the neck tightly too, and leaned back to smile at him. Seeing his glasses up close reminded her… "Uncle Danny, did you bring Harry Potter to read to me? When I was really scared I tried to be brave like Harry Potter, because even though he's not real_ you're_ real and you were brave when you were little like me! And I sang all those songs you taught me that Mommy doesn't like, you know, when I was bored and scared, and there was this puzzle that you would've liked to see…"

"I don't have the book with me right now, Jordan. But we'll be back at the SGC soon and I'll get it then. In the meantime I can tell you a story from memory in a little while, if you want. I'm glad I could help you a little bit, not to be scared. You were very brave." He kissed her on the cheek and handed her back to her dad, who held her sideways in his lap, holding onto her with one arm, with the other one around her mom, who leaned over to kiss her again.

"Yes, you were. You were so brave," she said.

"I tried to be smart too! I took a lot of ob-ob-observations about the ship and I gathered a lot of intel!" Jordan told her parents proudly.

Her dad laughed and said, "Well, you'll have to report all of that to General Hammond with the rest of us when we get home, Jo. Good work."

Jordan bit her lip for a moment, then confessed in a whisper, "I said a LOT of bad words too."

Her dad just laughed and said, "I think we can let that slide this time, don't you, Mom?"

Her mom was crying and laughing again. "Definitely," she agreed happily. Then she stopped and asked, "Jordan?"

"Yes, Mommy?"

"Auntie said you were asking her about babies last time you saw her, and looking back on it, it explains a lot about some of your more curious behavior the past several weeks. But how did you know I was going to have a baby before the rest of us did?"

Jordan thought hard for a few moments, then shrugged. "I dunno. I just knew."

"But how?" Daniel prompted, unable to stop his own curiosity.

Jordan thought hard and said, "I dunno exactly. It's kinda like… I have a feeling in my tummy around Mommy and Uncle Teal'c because of our special blood, you know? But then there's another feeling when I'm around Daddy… same as that guy that came over one time, with the sticky up hair? Remember, Mommy, he came over with Dr. Elizabeth that time, when I was in your lab at work with you?"

"Colonel Sheppard?" Sam reminded/guessed.

"Yeah! The funny guy! Anyway, same feeling from him and from Daddy… kinda tingly at the back of my neck. Anyway, I started to get BOTH those feelings combined from Mommy a while ago, coming from her tummy, so I knew there was a baby in there, that's all. I didn't know it was two babies at first though. Not till… um, I guess not till just now, when I was bringing them back."

"I didn't know you could sense the ATA gene," her mom said in amazement, looking to her dad, who shrugged.

"I've never felt anything like that. Don't think anyone on Atlantis has either."

"Perhaps it is because of the activity in her young mind that Dr. Fraiser has been monitoring," Teal'c suggested.

"Maybe," Daniel mused.

Jordan, unconcerned with the how or the why, turned to her dad hopefully and asked, "Did you bring snacks?"

xxxxx

"Don't tell the doc," Jack insisted, breaking off a piece of a chocolate bar from the MRE Sam had been forcing down earlier and handing it to her. She took it happily.

Sam cleared her throat, movement in the doorway catching her eye, and said, "Speaking of Auntie…"

Jordan twisted to see the doorway too, and exclaimed, "Auntie! Grampa!"

Jacob and Janet came in and hugged her, Janet first.

"I don't recall giving the okay for solid food. Much less chocolate," Janet said, looking at Jack pointedly.

"But Auntie, chocolate is magic. It heals you, right Uncle Danny?" Jordan insisted.

Daniel stifled a laugh and said, "Um, I think that's only for dementors, Jordan."

"Oh." She thought a moment and shrugged. "Well, it makes me feel better."

Janet shook her head, but was smiling indulgently as she stepped aside to let Jacob have his turn hugging his granddaughter.

Sam released her daughter reluctantly so Jacob could pick her up out of her lap, having to remind herself that everyone was relieved she was okay, and they all wanted to see her, and Sam would have forever to hug her daughter from now on. She watched as Jacob held her out to look at her and declared, "You look more like your mommy every time I see you," before hugging her to him again.

"Grampa, did you and Selmak come in a ship?"

"As soon as we heard you were missing," he confirmed.

"And you brought Auntie – Auntie, you _never _go in space!" Jordan declared suddenly.

"Only for very special patients," Janet said, smiling at her and feeling her forehead cautiously. "You do need to keep resting though, sweetie. We'll be home soon, and once we're there I can do a much better checkup on you."

Jordan squirmed. "With needles?"

"I'm afraid so, sweetie. But you know what? There's someone in my infirmary who's going to be very happy to see you."

"Who?" Jordan asked in surprise.

"Can't tell. It's a surprise. You'll find out soon enough," Janet promised.

"Awwwwww…" Jordan complained.

A distraction soon presented itself, in the form of Thor. "Thor!!" Jordan squealed as the alien entered. She hurried over to him and threw her arms around him in a big hug. Nobody knew what to do for a moment. Then Thor lifted his skinny arms and attempted somewhat clumsily to hug her back, patting her on the back. They were just about the same size.

Jack muttered, "Like mother like daughter," earning funny looks from those who hadn't heard about the time Sam had hugged Thor.

Jordan finally let go of him and, smiling, said, "Thank you for bringing everyone and rescuing me, Thor. Jormungand really doesn't like you."

"The feeling is mutual. You are most welcome, Jordan. I am most glad that our mission was successful and that your health is restored. The Asgard on Jordana will be pleased to hear of our success as well."

"Can I come and see the controls you use to fly the ship again?" she asked hopefully.

"Ah," Janet interrupted pointedly. "You do need sleep, Jordan. I'm glad you're feeling so well at the moment but you're using up a lot of energy right now and you need a bit more rest until you're back to normal."

Jordan looked ready to argue, but Sam said, "I'm pretty tired too, actually. Maybe Jordan and I could rest and you guys could wake us up before we get back to the SGC."

They all agreed and took the hint, making quick excuses to vacate the room. Once the excitement of seeing everyone was over, Jordan soon found herself yawning sleepily, and not protesting at all as her mom helped her back into bed and tucked her in.

xxxxx

It seemed like no time at all had passed before Jack was waking them up. "Thor says we're almost there," Jack said quietly.

Sam sat up sleepily and started tucking her hair into place, looking over at the other bed where Jordan was napping. She had kicked the blanket down to her feet, so that the overlarge tee-shirt was all that was covering her. Skinny, bent knees pointed at them from where she was curled on her side. "Why didn't I think to bring her anything to wear?" Sam suddenly asked aloud, clearly chastising herself with the statement. _Because, _she answered herself honestly. _You couldn't bear the thought of bringing clothes you'd packed for Jordan back to Earth unworn. _

"I packed her clothes," Jack answered, going over to his pack. Jack had brought them for the opposite reason; packing them had helped cement in his mind that they wouldn't be coming home without her.

Smiling at him, Sam crossed the small room and sat down next to Jordan on the edge of the bed, rubbing her back gently. "Jordan? We're almost home, do you want to wake up or keep sleeping?"

"Home?" Jordan mumbled sleepily, rubbing her eyes and sitting up halfway.

"That's right. We'll be at the SGC in no time at all. And everyone there is going to be so happy to see you."

"Is G.G. going to be there?" she asked.

"Yes, he is."

She smiled happily. Jack handed Sam a small stack of folded clothes. "You have to be in proper uniform to present yourself to the General, young lady," Jack informed his daughter.

Jordan reached for the clothes eagerly – he had brought her little makeshift SG-1 "uniform," which she always loved to wear on base. Jordan got dressed quickly in her green cargo pants, black tee-shirt, and little boots. Her mom brushed out her tangled hair for her, while she looked to her dad hopefully.

"What?" he asked when he saw her watching him.

"You bring me a hat, Daddy?" she asked, nodding to the baseball cap on his head.

"Sorry, Princess, I just brought the one," he said, pulling it off his head and plunking it down on hers instead.

Sam, who had just spent the past ten minutes brushing out the hair underneath, groaned.

Jordan pulled the hat down on her head even more, grabbed her Homer doll, and got to her feet with a big grin. "NOW I'm ready," she declared.

"Well, let's go to the bridge and watch Thor park this thing over Earth," Jack said, taking Jordan's hand. Sam took the other one and they hurried to meet everyone on the bridge.

Daniel, Teal'c, Janet, and Jacob were already standing in a line in front of Thor, and the three O'Neills just barely had time to wave at them before Thor beamed them down, presumably to the SGC.

"Well, so much for that," Jack remarked, somehow feeling that things were a bit anticlimactic as they moved into position in front of Thor. Still, all that mattered was that this time, when they went back to the base, it would be hand in hand with their daughter.

"Thor, aren't you coming to the SGC with us?" Jordan asked.

"I will remain on the ship with Jormungand until another Asgard ship arrives to take custody of him. I will visit you again before I depart for Jordana."

"Promise?" Jordan demanded very seriously.

Sounding slightly taken aback, and more than a little confused as to why this child seemed so fond of him, he nonetheless nodded solemnly and said, "I promise."

She smiled brightly at him and probably would have said something else in another moment, if he had not activated the beam once more and sent them all back to Earth.

xxxxx

If Jack had felt that things had become a bit anticlimactic on Thor's ship, the thought was all but forgotten in the events that followed as they landed on the ramp in the gateroom, in front of the Stargate.

It seemed that every member of the SGC was crammed into the gate room and control room. The SG teams who had accompanied them (in finding their daughter, Jack had all but forgotten about them) had evidently been sent back to Earth by Thor ahead of time enough to spread the word that the mission was successful and Jordan was on her way home, because there had to be over a hundred balloons decorating the gateroom. Several people were holding flowers and a menagerie of stuffed animals. Someone (Jack thought it looked like Walter's handiwork) had draped a banner under the control room window, which said "Welcome back, Jordan!" and was decorated with stars.

Jack had barely had time to take in the overwhelming sight before everyone burst into loud applause and cheering.

"Mommy?" Jack heard his daughter's small voice ask through the rest of the noise. He turned to see Jordan tugging on Sam's hand, looking a bit overwhelmed by the sight of so many people all staring and cheering at her.

"What's wrong, Jordan?" Sam asked.

"Why is everyone giving me a party?"

"They're proud of you, and glad to have you home."

"Proud of _me? _But I didn't do anything… all I did was wait to be found," Jordan stated matter-of-factly, still looking completely stunned at seeing the whole SGC before her.

At her remark, Jack let out a sigh of relief for something he didn't know had been worrying him until just now, when his worry went away. He looked over Jordan's head at Sam and could tell be the look on her face that she was feeling the same thing – utter relief that Jordan would be all right. Physically, they knew she would be fine. But emotionally… that was another matter. If Jordan was already summing up her entire experience as nothing beyond "waiting to be found," then surely she wouldn't be plagued by nightmares or haunted by what had happened to her. It seemed as though they had their daughter back one hundred percent, just the same as she'd always been.

She confirmed their thoughts by suddenly squealing, "G.G.!!" as she spotted General Hammond among the crowd. He was actually standing at the base of the ramp with Teal'c and Daniel, but there were so many things to look at and she had been so overwhelmed that it had taken her a while to spot him. She dropped her parents' hands and went clambering down the ramp to the General, throwing her arms around his waist in an excited hug before obviously remembering her usual routine. She then stepped back from him, snapped her heels together, stood up straight, and saluted him – although she was grinning ear to ear as he did it.

Smiling as well, eyes twinkling even more than usual, he saluted her back, then said, "At ease."

She then jumped back into his arms. Hugging her, he looked over her shoulder to the entire base personnel and said, "That goes for the rest of you too."

The silence that had descended upon the crowd when Jordan started running down the ramp broke as everyone started cheering, laughing, and talking once more, the sea of the crowd starting to shift closer towards Daniel, Teal'c, Janet, Jack, Sam… anyone who had been in on the rescue.

At the top of the ramp, Jack muttered quietly to Sam, "If we tell them about the twins now we might just make them all explode or something."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, as they started heading down the ramp. "Well, Daniel knows, Janet knows, and Jordan knows. I'd say it's even odds as to which one of them spreads it the fastest."

Chuckling, Jack had to agree that she was, as usual, right.

xxxxx


	27. Back to Normal

Ch 27

Ch 27

Jordan O'Neill loved her "Auntie Janet" very much. She kept reminding herself of that over and over again as the doctor and several nurses under her direction (Jordan's dad always called them her 'minions'), kept doing what seemed like every test they could imagine on her to make sure she was okay. They'd done a lot of tests on her mom too, because of the babies, but now even her mom was finished and Jordan was still stuck in the infirmary, 'resting.' Complaints that it was hard to rest when people kept poking you and shining lights in your eyes had only been met with fond laughter from Janet.

"How many more?" Jordan whined as Janet came back into the room.

"Not much longer."

"Then can I go home?" Jordan asked. At first she had loved all the attention from the stream of visitors to the infirmary – which was currently as full as Janet would allow with balloons, flowers, and stuffed toys. But now, she was starting to feel a lot like a goldfish. Combined with all the testing, she was starting to find the visitors tiresome, and wanted to go home with her family, where it was quiet, and nobody gave you shots.

"I'd like you to stay here for another two days, to keep an eye on you," Janet explained gently as she wrapped the blood-pressure-taker back around Jordan's little arm again.

"But Auntie…" Jordan whined. "Thor says I'm okay, and his machines are way better than yours!"

She knew as soon as she'd said it that it was a mistake. Janet did not like having her instruments declared inferior; she seemed to take it as a personal insult.

"Be that as it may, his knowledge of human physiology is _not. _No matter how brave and tough you are, your body is still only five years old, and it still needs rest."

"I can rest at home better," Jordan grumbled.

"You are worse than your father!" Janet declared for what seemed like the millionth time, at least.

"Thanks!" Jordan said with a bright grin, because she knew it would irk Janet.

Janet narrowed her eyes at her and said, "I _was _going to bring your surprise visitors in to see you in a moment. But now…" she trailed off.

"I don't want any more visitors," Jordan said tiredly, scrunching down under her covers.

"Really? You're sure of that?"

Jordan nodded. "Except for Daddy, Mommy, Uncle Danny, Uncle T, G.G., Grampa Jacob… or Thor. Is it Thor?" she asked hopefully, since Thor had not come down to see her yet.

Janet shook her head. "Not Thor. But somebody you're going to want to see, I promise."

"Okay," Jordan agreed reluctantly, clearly doubting that Janet was right.

Janet scribbled something on Jordan's chart and went back to the door, opening it and speaking quietly to someone outside. She then stepped aside to let the person in.

Seeing who it was, Jordan squealed happily and called, "CASSIE!! You're home from college!"

The young woman hurried over to her quickly, since Jordan had already pulled off the monitor clipped to her thumb and was trying to figure out how to take off the rest of the equipment she was connected to so she could come over to her.

"Hang on," Cassie said with a laugh. "Mom will have kittens if you do that. And speaking of kittens…"

From behind her back, Cassie produced…

"Kitty cat!" Jordan exclaimed. It was the same kitten that had started this whole mess by showing up at the back door, Jordan was sure. "Jormungand really did send you back! I thought he might have been tricking me, but you're okay!"

Cassie set the kitten down in Jordan's lap. Jordan immediately started cuddling it to her and petting it. The wriggling kitten purred as it reveled in the attention.

"Cassie, how did you get him?" Jordan asked in amazement as Cassie sat down on the edge of the bed next to her and hugged her carefully around the kitten.

"Mom had nurses on shifts watching the kitten. She told me she was going with your mom and dad to get you, and I drove down yesterday after classes ended. When I showed up at the base to find out what was going on, General Hammond put me in charge of the kitten, so I took her home to Mom's with me."

"Her? He's a girl?" Jordan asked.

Cassie nodded. "So he's a she."

"Do I get to keep her now, Cassie?"

Cassie shrugged and said, "Sure, why not."

Janet, who had been watching from the doorway, smiled to herself, wondering what Jack and Sam were going to think about that. Then, remembering the day they had brought her adopted daughter home to her for the first time and Janet suddenly found that her new daughter also now came with a new, soon to be very large puppy, Janet laughed. Turnabout was fair play, even if it took about a decade to get there.

xxxxx

Cassie visited with Jordan for a long time while they played with the kitten, before the infirmary was suddenly filled with Daniel, Teal'c, Jack, and Sam. They had all just found out Cassie was there and hurried to see her after they finished briefing the President on the rest of their mission.

After everyone had greeted everyone, Jack looked at the kitten pointedly and said, "What are you planning to do with that thing, young lady?"

"Take her home?" Jordan suggested hopefully.

Jack looked at the little kitten, which was currently playing with a cotton ball, scrambling around on the bed at Jordan's legs. Then he looked at the hopeful look on his daughter's face and knew he couldn't say no. "All right. But name him so I know what to yell when he's bad."

"She won't be bad, Daddy, and she's a girl, not a boy cat," Jordan explained happily. She studied the little grey kitten and declared, "I will call her Thor."

Sam turned a laugh into a cough and said, "Um, that's sweet, buddy, but I'm not sure if Thor will understand the sentiment."

"Perhaps you could call her Thorabelle," Teal'c suggested in a much too innocent tone to be believable.

Daniel, Sam, and Jack all got the reference, to a long ago faux-argument over potential names for Jordan before she was born.

"Thorabelle," Jordan said thoughtfully, oblivious to the amusement of all the adults around her, and the reasons for it. "Good one, Uncle Teal'c!" She turned to the kitten and said, very seriously, as though she were knighting the little kitten, "I will call you Thorabelle."

The kitten merely rolled onto its back with a cotton ball clasped between its front paws, trying to kick the ball of fluff to death with its back paws.

xxxxx

The next day, Jordan got to go home. She suspected part of her early release was due to Janet's desire to get Thorabelle out of the infirmary. Either way, she wasn't complaining. She was happy to be home, in her own room and her own bed, even though her Auntie Janet had insisted that she "take it easy" at home.

All the other grown-ups were doing their best to make sure she obeyed too, over the next few days. They only really left her alone when she was sleeping, which annoyingly she still found herself doing more than usual. When she was awake they tried to keep her as entertained as possible in her room.

At Uncle Teal'c's turn to watch her, he had shown up with a box of new cat toys and they had played with the kitten together for a long time, playing quietly on the floor with the scampering kitten, whose antics amused Uncle Teal'c at least as much as Jordan.

Cassie had come over and French braided her hair and watched a movie with her.

Janet came by to check on her before work and after work, but there was only minimal poking involved in the process now.

Her parents had taken the opportunity to tell her stories and even show her some movies, borrowed from Thor, about the time they had been at the cabin waiting for her to be born. They had told her the story, at a level she could understand, of what had really happened, so that Jordan was no longer bothered by the things Jormungand had told her about her parents not wanting her.

Now it was Uncle Danny's turn to watch her. Her parents had gone to her school to explain a fake story to the principal about where she had been and tell her she would be coming back to school soon. Jordan was just sure that Mrs. McKeel was going to send home tons of homework for Jordan to do until she went back to school. She was trying not to think about it too much, and Uncle Daniel was trying to help her. He had finished reading the last Harry Potter to her. Jordan was disappointed because he told her she'd have to wait a while for the last two books in the series to be written.

They had done a puzzle together for a while, because Uncle Danny's voice was tired of reading. But after he had rested his voice for a while, and they had a snack, he told her to get back into bed. He tucked her in, put the kitten on the bed with her, and sat down beside her on top of the covers, getting back into reading position. Jordan was surprised, because she didn't know he brought anything else to read.

He pulled out another book. "What's that?" Jordan asked, trying to see the cover.

"This is a new book. Well, it's new to you. There are three of them, and this is the first one. I think you'll like it. It's about a very brave little girl, just like you, who has an adventure. Do you want to read it?"

She nodded eagerly; Uncle Daniel always picked out the best books. He opened the book, cleared his throat, and began. "Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall…"

xxxxx

"How can that old witch expect one little girl to do all this work before next Monday?" Jack grumbled as he lugged a stack of folders and books inside and dumped them on the kitchen table.

"She may have a point though. Jordan might have missed so much school that she's no longer able to keep up with the second grade work. It wouldn't be a bad thing if she needed to slow down a bit," Sam said.

She was concerned only because she knew her daughter so well. There was a fine line between _challenging _Jordan and _frustrating _Jordan. And if you frustrated her with something that was just a little bit too complicated for her to grasp, the results were extremely unpleasant for everyone in the near vicinity. Sam understood it, and could easily forgive it, because that was exactly how she often felt. Of course, she was better at handling the situation. Jordan was, after all, only five years old. It was sometimes easy to forget that they could only expect so much from her, even though she was incredibly gifted.

"She'll be fine," Jack said, with the same sort of certainty in his voice he often had when he oh-so-casually asked his wife to do something impossible to save the world in no time flat.

Daniel came into the kitchen and headed straight from the refrigerator, only nodding at them in passing, until he had pulled out a can of soda and drank most of it in one gulp.

Laughing, Sam said, "You _can _tell her you're tired of reading."

"I know. I just… for a while there I was afraid I might not get to read to her ever again, so now I… I can't say no. Not yet anyway."

"Could you ever?" Jack asked, although he knew exactly what Daniel meant. Maybe Jordan was being spoiled a bit at the moment, but she _was _still recovering from a horrible ordeal. They were _all_ still recovering, and this was just part of the process.

Daniel shrugged good-naturedly and glanced at the stack of schoolwork on the table. "Wow," he said. Then he added, "She's napping. Thorabelle is curled up on her shoulder and neck; it's so cute."

Sam, at that, hurried off to go take a peek for herself, still wanting Jordan in sight as much as possible, although she was doing much better now that they'd been home for a bit.

In the kitchen alone, Jack turned to Daniel and asked, "You staying for dinner?"

"Teal'c thought he might bring over bar-be-cue supplies. We never did have that bar-be-cue we planned."

_For the day Jordan went missing_, Jack reminded himself. And suddenly, a bar-be-cue seemed like a great idea. As a matter of fact, having everyone over for a family bar-be-cue seemed like just the perfect thing to help all of them get back to normal.

As they started planning it out in more detail, both men were interrupted by a knock on the front door. They both went to answer it. Jack opened the door to see Alex, Jordan's friend, standing there holding his bike steady next to him. He was smiling, and he had lost one of his front teeth since the last time Jack had seen him. "Hi Mr. O'Neill! I mean, General O'Neill! Can I see Jordan? Please?"

"How do you know she's better?" Daniel asked suspiciously.

"She called me like thirty minutes ago and said I could come over," Alex said, clearly confused.

Jack turned to Daniel for an explanation. Daniel shrugged sheepishly. "She must have called him while I was fixing her snack or in the bathroom or something."

"She said she's all better," Alex said nervously.

"She is," Jack assured him. "But she's sleeping at the moment."

"No I'm not!" Jordan yelled, clambering down the stairs with Sam following closely behind. She squeezed between Jack and Daniel in the doorway, smiling at her friend. "Hi Alex!"

"Hi Jordan!" he greeted enthusiastically.

Jack was pleased that the boy didn't try to hug his daughter.

"You lost a new tooth!" Jordan said in awe.

Alex nodded proudly. "It was loose, and I pulled it out at the grocery store. The manager got real mad because I got blood all over the cart and the aisle where the Oreos are."

"Wow," Jordan said appreciatively. At five, Jordan had not yet lost any of her own baby teeth, and was very impressed that Alex had now lost a grand total of three. Then she grabbed his hand suddenly and pulled him inside, saying excitedly, "You gotta come see my new kitten, come on, she's upstairs!"

As the two children hurried past Sam, who was at the bottom of the stairs, she called after them, "Wait a minute!"

They turned around on the stairs to look at her. "Does your mom know where you are this time?" Sam asked Alex pointedly.

He shook his head and admitted. "No, Mrs. O'Neill. Well… I would've told my mom this time but she was changing my little brother's diaper when Jordan called and my dad was on his computer and they would've said no anyway I think …"

"Okay," Sam interrupted. She looked at the disappointed looks on both their faces, particularly her daughter's, and said, "I'll wait five minutes before I call her."

"Can Alex stay for dinner?" Jordan asked immediately.

"If his mother lets him. Which I doubt she will, since he rode his bike over here without permission again. But I'll ask," Sam promised.

Satisfied for the moment with that response, they hurried upstairs even faster.

"Daniel, go make yourself nosy as usual," Jack said as soon as the adults were alone.

Daniel nodded as though accepting a mission of great importance and headed for the stairs. Sam stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a look that made the hand totally unnecessary. "I was just…" he started, then stopped himself and changed directions, pivoting on the stairs as well. "… going to call Teal'c about the bar-be-cue," he finished.

"What bar-be-cue?" Sam asked Jack as Daniel scuttled away.

"T's idea. But it sounds good to me. Daniel's calling everyone. Speaking of calling people… you need to call that kid's mom, don't you?"

"It hasn't been five minutes," she pointed out.

"Still… who said she could invite friends over without asking anyone first?"

"Yeah… we'll have to have a talk about that later, I guess. I think she's picked up on the fact that we're all so relieved to see her she can get away with anything at the moment."

"Hmmph," Jack responded, then went off to see if he needed more charcoal. Sam distinctly thought she heard him mutter something about 'building a cage' as well, but decided not to find out for sure. Not now, anyway.

xxxxx

Sam stopped outside the doorway to Jordan's room, unable to stop herself listening in just a little bit.

"… yeah, it's top secret though. I was doing something REALLY important for the Air Force, but I'm not allowed to talk about it. Nobody is," Jordan's voice said importantly.

"Wow… and the Air Force gave you the kitten as a reward when you finished?" Alex asked, clearly in awe. Apparently it didn't occur to the young boy to think too hard about what sort of "help" the United States Air Force could possibly need from a five year old girl, or why a kitten was considered sufficient payment for such "help."

"Yup," Jordan replied proudly.

Sam cleared her throat from the doorway and gave her daughter a pointed look. She was _supposed _to tell people she had been sick. Jordan smiled a bit nervously and said, "Hi Mommy… is Alex staying for dinner?"

"No, I'm sorry." She smiled sympathetically at Alex and said, "Your mother and father are waiting for you downstairs."

"Man, I'm in trouble again," Alex remarked with a resigned sigh, patting the kitten in farewell. He got to his feet and said, "Bye, Jordan. See you at school on Monday!"

She got to her feet, scooping Thorabelle up in her arms in the process, and said, "Bye, Alex. Sorry you got in trouble but thanks for coming over!"

As he walked past her in the doorway, Alex said gloomily, "Bye, Mrs. O'Neill."

"Bye, Alex." Smiling to herself, she shook her head and watched the little boy head down the stairs as though heading for the firing squad. Then, she turned back to her daughter, forced her smile down, and tried to look somewhat severe. "And you, young lady. What part of 'cover story' did you forget?"

"Aw, Mom, it's just Alex," Jordan shrugged. "He won't tell anybody. And anyways, he knows I wasn't sick from when he came over before. So I had to tell him _something_ else. I just told him it was Top Secret and I couldn't talk about it so he wouldn't _ask _me about it anymore."

"And that works with Alex?"

"Course it does," Jordan said, in a tone that plainly said she had no idea why it _shouldn't _work on anybody, ever.

"Well, all right… but for everybody else, you were sick, okay?"

"I _know, _Mommy! Everybody keeps reminding me! I'm not going to forget!"

"Okay. In that case, could you please get dressed?"

Jordan looked down at her pajamas and looked back at her mom eagerly. She'd been in pajamas since she got home, since she was still supposed to be resting. Having nowhere to go, she hadn't seen the need to get out of her pajamas. "Are we going somewhere?" she asked hopefully.

"Not quite. But everyone's coming over for dinner tonight. Your dad's cooking outside."

"Yaaaaaaaaaay!" Jordan exclaimed happily, hurrying over to her closet to get dressed.

xxxxx


	28. The End

Ch 28

Ch 28

The bar-be-cue was in full swing. Daniel and Teal'c were there, of course, as were Janet and Cassie, Jacob, and General Hammond. Sam, on the patio, was about to go see if Jack wanted help at the grill. Judging from the amount of smoke spewing from the thing, he could use it. As she headed over, however, she was intercepted by Teal'c, who was bringing out a large tray of raw burgers. As the tray passed in front of her, her stomach lurched and she ran inside quickly, barely making it to the bathroom in time.

Teal'c must have noticed and told Jack, because he knocked on the bathroom door, which was ajar anyway, as she was brushing her teeth, leaning unsteadily against the counter for balance. "'S'ok," she called around the toothbrush.

He came inside, waited for her to finish, and remarked jokingly, "You're supposed to throw up _after _my cooking, not before."

She rolled her eyes tiredly. "Your cooking is fine, it was just the sight and smell of the raw meat… maybe the babies are vegetarians." She sat down wearily on the closed toilet lid.

He filled one of the little paper cups by the sink with water and handed it to her. "You okay now? Do you want to go lie down? I'm sure everyone will understand…"

"No, I'll be okay. That's the good thing about morning sickness, I guess. At least mine, anyway. It comes and goes fairly quickly."

"Yeah, but it doesn't seem to know when morning is," Jack observed.

Sam nodded and forced a laugh. "Remember with Jordan, you thought she might be twins because I was so sick?"

"Yeah, little did we know there was a whole 'nother level of sick out there," Jack commiserated. "You ready to get up?"

"Yeah."

He gave her a hand up and they went back outside, Sam scanning the backyard happily. Her father and General Hammond had taken over control of the grill from Teal'c, and she was sure they would all be better off for it. From the looks on their faces and the frequent chuckles coming from the two men, Sam guessed they were reliving "the good old days" when they'd been younger officers together.

Janet and Teal'c were standing near the picnic table, Teal'c making his way steadily through a family size bag of potato chips. They were talking about something and keeping an eye on the activities going on in the yard.

Daniel, Cassie, and Jordan were tossing a Nerf football about, playing a game that seemed to be a combination of monkey-in-the-middle and tag. There was a lot of running, laughing, and chasing involved. Sam had no doubt that Daniel's involvement was a direct result of the combined persuasive forces of Jordan O'Neill and Cassandra Fraiser, but he was humoring them good-naturedly and enthusiastically, as always.

As she watched, Cassie tossed the ball to Jordan, who took off with it to avoid Daniel, who took chase. Jordan tried to look over her shoulder to see how close Daniel was to catching her, while still trying to run forwards at top speed. The result was, of course, a predictable fall. Sam had seen Jordan have many such minor accidents over the years and had gradually become somewhat used to them, since her daughter usually stubbornly sprang back up to her feet insisting she was completely fine. But given everything they'd been through recently, this time when she saw Jordan fall down in the yard, her heart and stomach lurched as if it was the first time she'd ever fallen, after taking three wobbly steps at the age of ten months. Sam immediately started to run over to her fallen daughter's side, but Teal'c got there first, swiftly scooping her up a mere split second after she fell, easily beating Daniel and Cassie to Jordan's side although he had been three times as far away.

Sam paused, watching from afar as Teal'c spoke to Jordan quietly, until evidently assured that she would survive. When he put her down, Jordan tightened her ponytail as she looked around. The entire yard had gone silent when she had fallen down, and everyone was staring at her, clearly scared. She looked at everyone, picked up the ball she had dropped when she fell, and called loudly, "For cryin' out loud, everybody, I'm FINE!"

She then threw the ball at Teal'c, said, "You're it!" and took off across the yard again.

Sam sighed in relief as the regular activity resumed. Jordan was right. She would be fine. Jordan had shown how resilient she was in every sense of the world. While the rest of them might take longer to recover from what had happened, Sam was sure, as she looked around at everyone enjoying themselves, that one day they'd all be fine too.

"That was… scarier than it should have been," Jack admitted to her quietly after a few moments.

"Yeah."

"You okay? You're a little pale."

She nodded and put her hand to her abdomen as her stomach growled loudly. The twins were making their presence known again, demanding to be fed. Jack was laughing a bit too hard at her growling stomach, to cover up the fact that he'd had the exact same reaction to seeing Jordan fall as she had. Jordan had somehow managed to turn the game into dodge ball, and had Teal'c on her side. The two unsurprisingly had Daniel and Cassie on the run. Daniel was attempting to hide behind Janet. Jacob and General Hammond were bringing large platters of burgers and hot dogs over to the picnic table and calling to everyone that it was ready.

"Sam?" Jack prompted again, squeezing her shoulder lightly. "You okay?"

She hugged him around the middle and nodded. "Yeah. I'm good."

It was true. Nobody was missing anymore.

xxxxx


	29. The Epilogue

Epilogue

Epilogue

Jack jerked awake as Sam suddenly grabbed his arm. "I think this is it," she said quietly.

"What?!" Jack exclaimed, sitting up quickly and flicking on the light.

He looked at her in alarm. She was sweating slightly although it was very cool in the room. She winced and grabbed her abdomen, which Jack had recently taken to calling 'the bowling ball.'

"This can't be it," he said, rubbing her back as she sat up and leaned forward. "It's three weeks early…"

"I don't think… the babies know… they're early," Sam panted, biting her lip in pain.

"All right, hang on," he said quickly, jumping out of bed and grabbing his discarded jeans from earlier.

He tried to hurry down the hall to Jordan's room at the same time he was trying to get dressed, which ended up not being one of the brighter ideas in history. He banged on her door with one shoe as he pulled the other one on.

Jordan opened the door, rubbing her eyes in confusion. "Are the babies coming?" she asked sleepily.

"Yes. Get your coat and some shoes and be at the front door in less than five minutes," he instructed, already hurrying back to their bedroom.

"Jack, you're doing this next time," Sam called as he grabbed her coat and helped her into it.

"All right, we'll see if Thor can help us out on that," he said lightly, tucking her hair back behind her ears and throwing back the covers, preparing to pick her up.

"I can walk!" Sam objected, suddenly grabbing his tee-shirt in pain.

"Yeah, I don't think so," he said quickly, scooping her up and hurrying downstairs, where Jordan was already waiting by the front door with her coat on over her pajamas and her feet stuck hastily into her boots. She had her backpack on as well, to his amazement, and she was holding his car keys for him.

"Good girl," he said with a grin as she opened the door for him. He turned to make sure she was locking it behind them and then hurried to the truck with Sam, who was watching Jordan carefully to make sure she didn't fall, as there was still ice and snow left on the ground.

"Be careful there, buddy… why do you have your backpack?" Sam asked as Jack strapped Jordan into the passenger seat.

"Alex said when his mom had a baby last year it took FOREVER. I don't want to be bored," Jordan explained as Jack practically tossed her over into the backseat and jumped behind the wheel.

"Shit, my phone…"

"You said shit, Daddy… oops, I just said it! Hey, your phone's back here!" she grabbed it off the seat and passed it to him, leaning over to look at Sam with a worried look on her face. "Are you okay, Mommy?"

"I'm fine, pal… thousands of women have babies every day, it's nothing to be worried about…"

"JANET!" Jack screamed into the phone as he ran past a stop sign. "Tell me you're on duty tonight! YES! We're on our way, Sam's having the babies… yes, now, what do you think I'm joking about this?! All right, sorry. Sorry, you're right. Okay. We'll be there in ten minutes… yes of course I'm driving safely!" He hung up the phone and tossed it back with Jordan, glancing at her. "Buckle your seatbelt," he ordered.

Seven minutes later he screeched to a stop at the first base security checkpoint. He flashed his badge irritably at the unfortunate SF that was on duty that night and barked, "I'm General Jack O'Neill, this is Colonel Samantha Carter and she's in the process of making people so you'd better get on that walkie talkie and have everyone at the next three security points ready to wave us through without stopping or so help me…"

"Daddy!" Jordan said in surprise, not used to hearing him sound so abrupt with his subordinates, nor as hysterical. He calmed down as the SF promised it would be taken care of and he sped away.

He pulled quickly into his parking space and went around to help Sam out. As she wasn't currently having a contraction, she tried to get out on her own, but he wasn't having it. He pulled her out of the car as Jordan jumped out behind her and slammed the door.

He turned to rush inside with her and was pleased to see Janet and an airman hurrying over with a wheelchair.

"It's not like I'm dying!" Sam objected as she was set in the chair and they tried to break wheelchair speed records getting her into the infirmary; the airman wheeling her, Janet taking her vitals and running beside the wheelchair, Jack running along the other side with Jordan in his arms.

xxxxx

After the initial excitement was over, however, Jordan proved to be right. It took a LONG time. She was sitting on the bed next to Sam's with her giant box of Crayons open, busy making cards for everybody to announce the arrival of the new babies. "How do you spell congratulations?" she called.

Jack handed Sam another cup of ice chips and called out the spelling over his shoulder.

"Thanks," Jordan called back, yawning into the back of her hand. Janet came back in, checked Sam's progress, and announced it would be at least another eight hours.

Sam looked over at the other bed, where Jordan was coloring, and said, "She has school tomorrow. I mean today."

"I don't want to go to school, I want to be here when the babies are born!"

"Honey, at this rate you can go to school and come back and still be here when the babies are born," Janet tried to tell her.

"No, I might miss something interesting… Daddy?" she pleaded, turning her case to the guy she could always win over.

"One day…" Jack said dismissively, looking at Sam and Janet.

"You were the one who wanted to let her skip grades, she doesn't need to be missing school… besides, like Janet said, apparently these babies are taking their time. Like their big sister," Sam added, tapping Jordan's nose.

"How about I call Daniel to go pick up your uniform at your house and he'll take you to school, and he'll come pick you up during the day if things get… interesting. It's only fifteen minutes away, he'll be able to get you in plenty of time," Janet suggested.

"All right," Jordan agreed reluctantly. "It's not like I'll be thinking about school anyway, but whatever."

xxxxx

Janet was right. It was almost nine hours later, Jordan was back from school, and there were still no babies. Sam was completely exhausted, the entire base was basically holding their breath, the infirmary had been designated off-limits by Janet unless you "were bleeding profusely," although nobody really wanted to go near it anyway, judging by the impressive stream of cursing issuing down the halls at regular intervals.

Jordan, still in her uniform from school but back to coloring, had even stopped saying, "Mommy said dammit, mommy said…"

"Déjà vu all over again, huh," Jack remarked as Daniel and Teal'c came in with more snacks for everyone, namely Jordan, and more ice chips for Sam.

"What does that mean?" Jordan asked as she peeled the banana Teal'c handed her and wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he picked her up with one arm.

"This event is remarkably similar to your own birth, Jordan O'Neill," he told her.

"I hurt you that much, Mommy?" she asked, alarmed.

"You were worth it, Jordan," Sam promised tiredly.

"These new babies better be good ones," Jordan decided sternly.

xxxxx

Finally, the first baby was born.

Jordan was upset that she had to go wait out in the hall with Teal'c and Daniel, but they kept her busy thinking of silly names they could maybe use, and guessing whether the babies were going to be both girls, both boys, or one of each. Janet came out soon and settled half the debate. "One healthy boy, a little small, but he's going to be just fine," she assured them.

"Told you one was a boy!" Jordan crowed to Daniel, before both she and Daniel demanded, "Can we see?" with identical eagerness.

Janet laughed. "Not yet. He's not even cleaned up and Sam's still got one more to go. I have to go." She hurried back inside, shutting the door behind herself firmly.

She grabbed some fresh gloves and watched as the nurse finished wrapping the baby up snugly in a blanket.

"I can't see him," Sam complained.

"Me neither! Doc, come on!"

"All right, hold your horses, General," Janet scolded, taking the baby. "Oh, look at you, cutie."

She handed over the baby to his father reluctantly, knowing she had more work to do and would get to hold him later. Jack inhaled sharply as the tiny squirming bundle wrapped thoroughly in a white blanket was pressed into his arms. He looked down at him and said quietly, "Woa. He's here. He's a… person. He's so tiny!"

"I want to see him!" Jordan insisted, running into the room. Daniel was scrambling after her into the room, trying to grab her.

"She squirmed away from me as soon as she sent Teal'c off to get her some Jell-o," Daniel explained apologetically.

"It's okay, Danny," Jack said with a chuckle as he knelt down so Jordan could see the baby.

Sam tried to watch all of this, but Janet, who had checked the fetal monitor and was now insisting she keep pushing, which she was much too tired to do, wouldn't have it.

"Sam, I know you're tired, honey, but you can't stop now," Janet ordered. "General!" she suddenly snapped. "A little help here?"

"Right," he said quickly, standing up and moving closer to Sam's head, carefully shifting the baby to the crook of one arm so he could hold Sam's hand with the other. "Do what the doc says…"

"YOU do what the doc says," she said grumpily.

"Sam… you're almost done." He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, not sure which one was better: earlier, when she'd been squeezing it to death, or now, when she was so tired it was just resting limply in his. "One down, one to go. And this one's going to be wondering where his neighbor is pretty soon." He waited for several moments while Sam got a good long look at the baby. When Janet cleared her throat again, he scowled briefly at her before squeezing Sam's hand and prompting, "Come on, what's it gonna be? Another boy or another girl? Ready?" She smiled in an exhausted sort of way and nodded. "All right, let's find out…"

A minute later, and Daniel and Jordan had exchanged scared looks and practically raced each other out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them. They leaned against the door in the hallway, catching their breath.

Teal'c was leaning against the opposite wall, taking in their hasty retreat in stride, blue jello for Jordan in one hand.

"It's coming," Daniel announced hoarsely.

"Daniel Jackson, I have watched you yourself deliver two offspring single-handedly."

"Yeah but that was different… it was just one at a time and I was too focused to take in the whole picture… plus that's _Sam _in there."

Jordan wrinkled her nose at the jell-o. "I'm not so hungry anymore," she admitted.

Another minute later, and the nurse was washing off another screaming baby.

"They're so loud!" Jordan objected from the hallway, covering her ears with her hands.

Daniel laughed. "You were pretty loud yourself, you know."

" 'Were' implies that she has since ceased, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c added.

"Hey!" Jordan objected, shoving at his leg playfully. He merely looked down at her with an amused eyebrow raised.

She was the only person who could get away with that with such impunity, Daniel mused. Although, he realized, that number had probably, from the sound of things, just tripled.

Janet opened the door again and said, "All right, Jordan, let's get you suited up to meet your new brother and sister."

"But Auntie I already went in there for a second before when there was one already born and I wasn't wearing the hospital clothes… wait! A brother AND a sister? A boy and a girl twin?? Teal'c! It's what we wanted!" She jumped up into Teal'c's arms excitedly, trusting him to catch her.

He caught and hugged her before setting her back down on her feet. "It is indeed a happy day, Jordan O'Neill. Go and meet your new siblings. They are fortunate to have a big sister who has already proven that she is more than capable of the responsibilities that such a title carries with it. You have protected them so far, and must continue to do so."

She nodded, trying to show from her expression that she was taking what he said seriously - but at the moment she was just so excited she could hardly stay still. She turned to Janet and said, "All right, doc, suit me up!"

Janet laughed and held out a hand for her, looking over her head to Teal'c and Daniel. "_They_ wanted you all at once. I'm being the bad guy. Give Sam a chance to recover a tiny bit, huh guys?"

"Sure," Daniel said.

"We will be right here," Teal'c promised.

xxxxx

An hour later, everyone was clean and dry and quiet. Sam had slept briefly but was awake again. Janet was running lots of tests on the babies since they were twins and had been born early, but so far they seemed perfectly fine even though they were a bit small at just over six pounds each. The chaos of the room had been replaced by a dreamy slowness.

The bed was now extremely crowded with five people on it; Sam still lay in it, of course, with the babies tucked against her. Jack was sitting on the edge next to her legs, trying to hold Jordan in his lap, but she kept leaning over to try and see the babies up close. They were both wrapped in white blankets, as the SGC infirmary didn't usually double as a maternity ward, but Jack knew the one on the left was his son and the one on the right was his daughter. They were already as precious as his first son and daughter.

"So… what are we going to name these guys?" Sam asked, looking down at their sleeping little heads.

After much discussion between the two of them, with some rather creative input from Jordan as well, they had narrowed their list of names to a short list of boys and girls names, but hadn't come to any final decisions yet.

"After what you just did, I forfeit the right to name them. Anything you pick is fine with me."

She smiled, remembering that he'd said pretty much the same thing when Jordan was born, and looked down at the baby girl. "I'm not sure. What do you think, Jordan?"

"Uncle T and I already decided! Luke and Leia!"

Sam groaned. Jack chuckled, and, knowing that his wife would never agree to it, said, "It does have a nice ring to it."

"Why am I not surprised. You and Teal'c… honey, you don't want the babies to be made fun of when they go to school, do you?"

"Luke and Leia are like the best brother-sister twins _ever, _Mommy, nobody's gonna make fun of that."

"She has a point," Jack contributed.

Sam gave him a look. He chuckled but added, "Although your mom's right, Jo. Besides, they're gonna get all the attention every time I have to introduce all three of you if you name 'em that."

"Oh yeah. Maybe just separate names then, like we talked about before," Jordan decided, thinking to herself that her dad had a very good point there.

"I think that's for the best," Sam agreed quickly. "Why don't we name your sister first."

"Hermione!" Jordan said immediately. "Hermione and Harry!"

Sam laughed. "Um, let's… keep thinking."

"I have an idea," Jack suggested quietly, leaning over and pulling back the side of the blanket to see the baby's face better. Sam and Jordan looked at him expectantly. "How about Cheyenne?"

"Like Cheyenne Mountain? That's here, Daddy!"

"I know, that's the point, Jo. This is your favorite place in the world, right?"

"In the _universe, _Daddy," she corrected.

"Well, even better. And your mom and I are pretty fond of it too. It _is _where we met."

"That's true," Sam agreed, tilting her head up to kiss him.

"Oh for cryin' out loud," Jordan growled under her breath. She leaned in to the baby and whispered, "You better get used to that, Cheyenne, they do that a lot."

Her parents smiled and pulled apart reluctantly. "Well, I think this one's named then."

"She needs a middle name, like me," Jordan reminded.

"True," Jack agreed. "Well, what's your name again, pal? It's so long I forget it sometimes."

She giggled and said, "No you don't, Daddy. It's Jordan Janet Carter O'Neill. But on my stuff at school it just says Jordan J. O'Neill… hey, I know! My letters are J.J. so let's make hers C.C.!"

"How, Jo?"

"Cheyenne… Cassandra! That's a C too, right?"

"That's right, buddy, but that's a really long name," Jack said.

"It has a nice ring to it though," Sam said. "Will you show her how to write all that, Jo?"

"Yes! I will, I promise!" she agreed quickly.

They both laughed. "Okay then," Jack said. "That one's done."

"Stick a fork in her, she's done!" Jordan agreed. "But not for real though. She looks pretty soft."

Jack chuckled, ruffling her hair. "What about the boy? Anybody got any ideas?"

"James," Jordan said quickly.

"That's a good name, Jo. But I think your sister might feel left out if you two have 'J' names and she doesn't," Sam said.

"Daddy's got a 'J' name too," Jordan added. "Okay, maybe that's too much 'J's.' Mommy, do you feel left out being the only 'S' name right now?"

She laughed. "No, honey. But I'm not a baby."

"We should give him a 'S' name to match you, Mommy!" Jordan declared. "I better go talk to Uncle Danny about this, he knows way more words than you guys." Before they could stop her she had jumped off the bed and run out the door.

Jack and Sam had a few quiet moments with the babies before Jordan came running back in, dragging Daniel behind her by the hand, Teal'c following, waiting to see what was going to happen with that tiny smile of amusement of his. Jordan was grinning from ear to ear. "_Told_ you he'd know what to do!" she declared.

"Yeah? Let's hear it," Jack said. Teal'c and Daniel stood next to the bed and Jordan scrambled back up on the bed next to Sam's legs, sitting up on her knees.

"I told Uncle Daniel I said James and you said it was too many J's so I wanted an S, and he said there was an S name from my favorite Harry Potter that meant James in Irish and that Daddy was Irish anyway so the rest of us all are too and…"

"Whoa, whoa, breathe, Jo," Jack interrupted. "And calm down and tell us the name."

"Seamus!" she said eagerly. "It's perfect because it starts with the same sound for the twins, the S-H sound, and it starts with S like Mommy so now nobody will ever feel left out!"

Jack peered at the sleeping baby carefully. "That's perfect," he agreed, leaning over everybody to kiss Jordan on the cheek, then the baby's head very gently.

"You guys can do the middle name since I did the other one," Jordan said generously.

Jack laughed and said, "Wow, how magnanimous of you, Jo. Thanks."

"Jackson," Sam said suddenly, smiling at Jack. "Because he's your son. And because of Daniel."

"Ooh, good one, Mommy!" Jordan declared.

"Glad you approve, sweetheart," Sam said with a tired laugh.

"Now that you've settled on names for those two, I guess it's safe to open the floodgates, huh?" Daniel asked. "Janet's having trouble keeping General Hammond and Jacob away."

"Absolutely," Sam agreed. "Here, Teal'c, why don't you take Cheyenne, Daniel take Seamus, and Jack and Jordan can go get everyone else. I'll… just stay here."

Teal'c and Daniel didn't need to be offered to hold the babies twice, and Jordan was eager to go spread the word about her new brother and sister. She ran to the door, then turned back and nearly ran over Jack on her way back to the babies. "I will be _right _back," she told them, placing careful kisses to the tops of their heads. "Bye, 'Shy,' bye 'Shay!'"

She ran out of the room, so Jack had no choice but to follow her quickly. Sam laughed. "Well, it didn't take them long to get nicknames."

"They're cute nicknames," Daniel said, smiling down at the baby he was holding. "And cuter babies. This is the boy, right?"

"Yes!" Sam said, sounding offended.

"Sorry! They've got the hats on and they both look just like Jordan did… which is probably lucky because that means they'll look like you."

"Their eyes are dark, dark blue," Sam corrected. "I bet they'll turn brown like Jack's."

"Well, hopefully they'll take after you apart from that."

"Why is that your hope, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked, although all of his attention was focused on the baby he was holding. "Jordan O'Neill possesses many traits from both of her parents, and she has, as I believe you say, 'turned out okay.'"

"Good point, Teal'c," Daniel agreed. "Although if they've got the same amount of energy she has, I'm _not _babysitting all of them alone."

"We will have to 'double-team' them," Teal'c agreed.

Sam laughed and it turned into a yawn halfway through. "Well, it'll be a while before they're chasing after Jo. You should be safe for at least six months or so; it's bound to take them that long to figure out how to crawl."

xxxxx

_Nearly two years later…_

Sam woke up with a start, her heart racing. She glanced at the clock. It was early in the morning, still dark. She turned to look at Jack, who was sound asleep, hair sticking up at a million different angles, snoring very quietly.

She slipped out of bed and padded down the hall, pulling on her robe over her camisole and shorts as she went. She got to Jordan's room first. Peeking inside, she nearly had a heart attack when she saw that her daughter's bed was empty.

She hurried into the nursery and sighed in relief, wiping her eyes absently. Jordan was on the floor between the twins' cribs, sound asleep in her Harry Potter sleeping bag, Homer Simpson doll tucked under one arm.

Sam slipped inside quietly and checked on the twins.

At just under two years old, they wouldn't be happy in their cribs much longer. They got better and better at following after their sister every day, and weren't scared of anything. Both got into their share of trouble, but Cheyenne was the biggest climber of all three, whereas Seamus was _excellent _at hiding in and under things. They still resembled their sister in the face, but they had their father's deep brown eyes and their hair had darkened to a sandy combination of light, light brown and dark blonde, and was as straight as could be, whereas Jordan's was wavy.

Sam kissed both of them carefully, glad when they didn't wake up, adjusted their blankets, and then knelt down next to Jordan, tucking her hair back in place and kissing her forehead.

"You're going to wake her up," Jack said quietly from the doorway.

Sam got to her feet guiltily and joined him, hugging him tightly. "I can't help it - it's today, Jack."

"I know," he agreed, rubbing her back and kissing her. "It's been three years now though, hon."

"She wasn't in her bed when I went to check. I was terrified… I _knew _she was in here but in that moment I still…"

"I know."

"Three years ago on this day when we woke up she was gone. We almost lost her, Jack."

"And we almost lost you and the babies, getting her back. But we didn't. That's all that matters. Everyone's here and accounted for."

The cat slunk past them into the nursery, rubbing against Jack's legs in the process. Jack chuckled quietly as they watched the cat curl up against Jordan's side and start purring. "Even Thorabelle," Sam added with a smile.

"Yeah, even Thorabelle. Come on. We need more sleep. They're cute now, but they're gonna be awake soon."

"Aw, they're still cute when they're awake," Sam argued, hugging his arm as they headed back down the hall.

"Yeah, you weren't saying that on the way home from the park yesterday."

"Well, while I was fishing Jordan out of the pond she conveniently 'fell' into, the twins tried to ride the ducks!"

"So?"

"The _real _ducks, Jack. Not the plastic ones next to the sandbox."

"Oh. Jo left that part out when she told me about it yesterday."

"Conveniently."

They got back in bed, both thinking about the incident from the previous day and trying to stay remotely upset about it. In light of the fact that both of them were thinking about how terrible this day had been three years ago… it was impossible.

_The end._


End file.
